excursion

plural excursions

1. A brief recreational trip; a journey out of the usual way.

   While driving home I took an excursion and saw some deer.

   1 more example

   Mother[…]considered that the exclusiveness of Peter's circle was due not to its distinction, but to the fact that it was an inner Babylon of prodigality and whoredom, from which every Kensingtonian held aloof, except on the conventional tip-and-run excursions in pursuit of shopping, tea and theatres.

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 2, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

   Synonyms: journey, trip, jaunt

2. AustraliaA field trip.
3. A wandering from the main subject: a digression.

   Now all his ponderings, however excursive, wheeled round Isabel as their center; and back to her they came again from every excursion; and again derived some new, small germs for wonderment.

   1852, Herman Melville, Pierre; or The Ambiguities

   Synonyms: digression, excursus

4. aeronauticsAn occurrence where an aircraft runs off the end or side of a runway or taxiway, usually during takeoff, landing, or taxi.
5. human sciencesA deviation in pitch, for example in the syllables of enthusiastic speech.
6. Temporary deviation from a regular course or pattern

   After an unsuccessful excursion into banking, I've returned to public life.

present singular third person excursions · participle present excursioning · participle past excursioned · past excursioned

1. intransitiveTo go on a recreational trip or excursion.

   1825, Charles Lamb, Letter to Mr. Wordsworth, 6 April, 1825, in The Works of Charles Lamb, Volume I, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851, p. 249, https://books.google.ca/books?id=ypdNAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Yesterday I excursioned twenty miles; to-day I write a few letters.

   2 more examples

   After breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went out in the yard and watched the gangs of excursioning tourists arriving and departing with their mules and guides and porters […]

   1880, Mark Twain, chapter 49, in A Tramp Abroad

   Victoria cows preferred to walk on the plank sidewalks in winter rather than dirty their hooves in the mud by the roadside. They liked to tune their chews to the tap, tap, tap of their feet on the planks. Ladies challenged the right of way by opening and shutting their umbrellas in the cows' faces and shooing, but the cows only chewed harder and stood still. It was the woman-lady, not the lady-cow who had to take to the mud and get scratched by the wild rose bushes that grew between sidewalk and fence while she excursioned round the cow.

   1942, Emily Carr, “Ways of Getting Round”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC