profusion

From Middle French profusion, from Late Latin profusio.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɹoʊˈfjuʒən/, /pɹəˈfjuʒən/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɹə(ʊ)ˈfjuːʒən/

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• Rhymes: -uːʒən
• Hyphenation: pro‧fu‧sion

profusion (countable and uncountable, plural profusions)

1. abundance; the state of being profuse; a cornucopia

   His hair, in great profusion, streamed down over his shoulders.

   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, volume 1, New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     We set the men at work felling trees, selecting for the purpose jarrah, a hard, weather-resisting timber which grew in profusion near by.

   • 1962 October, Brian Haresnape, “Focus on B.R. passenger stations”, in Modern Railways, pages 250-251:

     Elegant brick and stone buildings, with iron and glass canopies and decorative wooden scalloping and fencing—all evidencing care on the part of the architect to produce a pleasing, well-planned building—were submerged beneath a profusion of ill-conceived additions and camouflaged by vulgar paint schemes; and the original conception was lost.

   • 2022, Italian pride in a leader's humility, in: The Christian Science Monitor, 2022-07-18

     Elected leaders face a profusion of mega-pressure points these days – inflation, heat waves, high debt, or the pandemic.

2. lavish or imprudent expenditure; prodigality or extravagance

profusion f (plural profusions)

1. profusion

• “profusion”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.