surplusage

plural surplusages

1. archaiccountableuncountableA surplus; a superabundance.

   It may be they required no information whatever; already they may have collected a surplusage[.]

   1911, ‘Steel Rudd’, The Book of Dan, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, published 1970, page 87

   2 more examples

   If then thee list my offred grace to vse, / Take what thou please of all this surplusage; / If thee list not, leaue haue thou to refuse […]

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from another part of the same creature.

   1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation

2. countableuncountablelawMatter in pleading which is not necessary or relevant to the case, and may be rejected.
3. countableuncountablebusinessA greater disbursement than the charge of the accountant amounts to.

   one third-part of the surplusage of the estate of any person dying inteſtate, ſhall be distributed to his widow,and the reſidue amongſt his children by equal portions

   1802–1819, Abraham Rees, The Cyclopædia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature