What does excided mean?
Excided is the past tense and past participle of 'excide', an uncommon English verb meaning to cut out, cut off, or remove by cutting. The word descends from Latin 'excidere', formed from 'ex-' (out) and 'caedere' (to cut), making it a direct sibling of words like 'incise', 'concise', and even 'decide', which originally meant to cut off alternatives. In practice, 'excided' appears almost exclusively in older or highly formal writing — surgical, legal, or editorial contexts where something has been physically or figuratively cut away — and modern writers nearly always choose 'excised' instead. Despite its rarity, it remains a legitimate dictionary word and a favourite among competitive word-game players, who prize it for its clean structure and surprising validity.
verb (past tense and past participle of the rare verb 'excide')Cut out, cut off, or removed by cutting; the past tense and past participle of the rare verb 'excide', meaning to excise or cut away.
- To have been cut out, cut off, or removed surgically or by cutting (past tense of 'excide').
"The surgeon carefully excided the damaged tissue before closing the incision."
"The surgeon carefully excided the damaged tissue before closing the incision."
"In the earliest manuscript, several passages had been excided by a later hand."
Buried in dictionaries since the days of Early Modern English, 'excided' shares its Latin root with 'decide' — literally, both words are about cutting.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of excided
Excided comes from the Latin verb 'excidere', meaning to cut out or cut off, itself built from the prefix 'ex-' (out) plus 'caedere' (to cut or strike). The verb entered English during the Early Modern period alongside many other Latinate learned borrowings, but it never achieved widespread use, and its inflected form 'excided' survives chiefly in archaic and specialist texts. It shares its root with 'incise', 'concise', 'decide', and 'suicide', all of which trace back to the same cutting verb 'caedere'.
Related word forms
How excided is actually used
Extremely rare and archaic; 'excised' is overwhelmingly preferred in modern usage. 'Excided' survives mainly in historical, legal, or medical texts and in Scrabble and other word games, where it is valued for its unusual letter pattern.
Easily confused with excided
'Excised' is the standard past tense of 'excise' (to cut out or remove), while 'excided' comes from the rarer, more archaic verb 'excide' with essentially the same meaning.