surplusage

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In discussing the 14th Amendment, Mr. Barnett fairly shows that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” isn’t empty surplusage.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

Some of that surplusage is sold by private surplus retailers.

From Seattle Times • May 19, 2024

But “our preference for avoiding surplusage constructions is not absolute.”

From MSNBC • Jun. 25, 2015

For a long while I thought sincerely that the newspaper insistence on writing into their code a clause saving their constitutional rights was pure surplusage.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Chief Justice should not be censured because she held peculiar theories of equity and looked upon the words "as we forgive those who trespass against us" as mere surplusage.

From A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties by Major, Charles