exorbitant

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 8, 2024 is: exorbitant \ig-ZOR-buh-tunt\ adjective Exorbitant describes something that goes far beyond what is fair, reasonable, or expected (as by being too high, too expensive, etc.). // The cost of our stay was so exorbitant you would have thought that we had bought the hotel and not just spent a few nights there. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exorbitant) Examples: “Facing budgetary pressure and dwindling state funding, higher education seems increasingly uninterested in fighting for the greater good. Such purpose is sacrificed for more short-sighted pursuits that appear to justify the exorbitant cost of college.” — Pepper Stetler, LitHub.com, 23 Aug. 2024 Did you know? Not all who wander are lost, but at one time such [errant](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/errant) souls might have been called exorbitant. Exorbitant traces back to the Late Latin verb exorbitare, meaning “to deviate,” which in turn was formed by combining the prefix ex- (“out of”) with the noun orbita, which referred to the rut or track of a wheel. While exorbitant could describe something moving erratically—physically straying from its usual course—it was also applied figuratively to other “wanderers,” such as off-topic remarks, powers going beyond the scope of the law, and even sinful people, i.e., those no longer on the [straight and narrow](https://bit.ly/3Xmmluy). Eventually, exorbitant developed its extended sense as a synonym of excessive, and it is now used to describe that which exceeds appropriate or customary limits in intensity, quality, amount, or size.