Excellency is an honorific style given to certain members of an organization or state.
Generally people addressed as excellency are heads of state, heads of government, governors, ambassadors, certain ecclesiastics, royalty, aristocracy, and military, and others holding equivalent rank (e.g., heads of international organizations, high commissioners in the Commonwealth of Nations).
It is sometimes misinterpreted as a title of office in itself, but in fact is an honorific that precedes various titles (such as Mr. President, and so on), both in speech and in writing. In reference to such an official, it takes the form His/Her Excellency; in direct address, Your Excellency, or, less formally, simply Excellency.
The abbreviation HE is often used instead of His Excellency; alternatively it may stand for His Eminence.
Read more about Excellency: Ecclesiastical Use
Famous quotes containing the word excellency:
“Neither years nor books have yet availed to extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me, that a scholar is the favorite of Heaven and earth, the excellency of his country, the happiest of men. His duties lead him directly into the holy ground where other men’s aspirations only point. His successes are occasions of the purest joy to all men. Eyes is he to the blind; feet is he to the lame. His failures, if he is worthy, are inlets to higher advantages.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)