a. [f. EXCEPTION sb. + -AL: cf. F. exceptionnel.] Of the nature of or forming an exception; out of the ordinary course, unusual, special.
1846. Worcester cites Q. Rev.
1852. Disraeli, 3 Dec., in Sel. Sp., I. 369. As regards its financial condition, Ireland … has been in a very exceptional state.
1861. Dickens, Gt. Expect., vi. The subject … ceased to be mentioned saving on exceptional occasions.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Org., v. 121. The founders of the thirteen colleges … were almost all of them exceptional men.
1875. Scrivener, Lect. Grk. Test., 81. Documents or records of exceptional value.
absol. 1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 136. The mastery of Shakespeare is shown perhaps more strikingly in his treatment of the ordinary than of the exceptional.
b. Const. from. rare.
1883. Sir H. Cotton, in Law Times Rep., XLIX. 324/1. That, therefore, makes this case exceptional from that of an ordinary case of mortgagor and mortgagee.
Hence Exceptionalness.
1886. Spectator, 28 Aug., 1142. It is not the meritoriousness but the exceptionalness of the achievement which makes the few willing to attempt it.
1889. Talbot, in Lux Mundi (ed. 10), 137. If we still plead that our sense of wonder stipulates for exceptionalness.
