excess vs limit

excess

noun
  • The state of surpassing or going beyond a limit; the state of being beyond sufficiency, necessity, or duty; more than what is usual or proper. 

  • An act of eating or drinking more than enough. 

  • Spherical excess, the amount by which the sum of the three angles of a spherical triangle exceeds two right angles. The spherical excess is proportional to the area of the triangle. 

  • The degree or amount by which one thing or number exceeds another; remainder. 

  • A condition on an insurance policy by which the insured pays for a part of the claim. 

verb
  • To declare (an employee) surplus to requirements, such that he or she might not be given work. 

adj
  • More than is normal, necessary or specified. 

limit

noun
  • A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go. 

  • The cone of a diagram through which any other cone of that same diagram can factor uniquely. 

  • A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic. 

  • Fixed limit. 

  • The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge. 

  • The first group of riders to depart in a handicap race. 

  • A person who is exasperating, intolerable, astounding, etc. 

  • A value to which a sequence converges. Equivalently, the common value of the upper limit and the lower limit of a sequence: if the upper and lower limits are different, then the sequence has no limit (i.e., does not converge). 

  • Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit. 

adj
  • Being a fixed limit game. 

verb
  • To restrict; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound, to set boundaries. 

  • To have a limit in a particular set. 

How often have the words excess and limit occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )