excelsior

n.
Slender, curved wood shavings used especially for packing.

[Originally a trademark.]

(ik-SEL-see-uhr)

noun
Wood shavings used for packing fragile items.

Etymology
From a trademark. From Latin, literally higher, from excelsus, high.

Usage
"In a glint of needle light, of grass seeds, dew flecks, a friend is throwing her voice While far inside a grainy heaven a butcher's apron ripples its dried blood in the wind. The bark strippings, excelsior, the panicles of the garden. In the midst of summer a friend cuts greens and places them in a bowl as if they were fronds. A friend is a vinegar - and now, pearl-shaped, in clusters, faces among her face, As globes rise on the lawn, each above a root of recriminations." — Garden solstice, The Antioch Review, Jun 1, 1996. The word excelsior is also the motto of the New York state: http://50states.com/flag/nyflag.htm It is also the title of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: http://bartleby.com/102/62.html Of course, here they are not exhorting us to take inspiration from wood shavings. Rather these refer to the Latin sense of the word. -Anu

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Curly, fine shavings cut from wood.

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Ballet in six parts with choreography by Manzotti, music by Romualdo Marenco, and design by Alfredo Edel. Premiered at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, with Bice Vergani, Carlo Montanara, and Rosina Viale. This spectacular ballet, celebrating the progress of human civilization, was conceived at a time when the public's taste for ballet had declined into hunger for lavish entertainment and also when Italian national optimism was at a peak. In many ways it prefigured the epics of Hollywood. It traced human progress in terms of a tumultuous struggle between the Spirits of Light and Darkness, dramatizing such landmarks as the invention of the steamship, the iron bridge, telegraphy, and the building of the Suez Canal and the Mont Cenis tunnel. The final defeat of Darkness is marked by a Grand Festival of the Nations and an apotheosis of light and peace. The choreography for the original production was arranged for several hundred of dancers and was lavishly staged. It was extremely popular and was revived all over Europe albeit in often reduced versions. In Vienna it was in the repertory from 1885 to 1914, receiving 329 performances. It was re-staged by dell'Ara for the Teatro Communale, Florence (1967), and for La Scala (1974).

Excelsior is a trade name dating from the mid-nineteenth century for the curly, fine wood shavings used as packing material when shipping breakable items. It is also used as a cushioning and stuffing material. Poplar, aspen, basswood or cottonwood are woods that are often made into excelsior.

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higher (New York)

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