Other forms: excelled, excels, excelling
To excel is to be outstandingly good at something. Not merely competent — head and shoulders above.
It takes at or in: excel at maths, excel in her field. There is also excel yourself, which means to do even better than you usually do, and it is a warm thing to say to somebody. The adjective excellent is far commoner than the verb, and excellence is what institutions endlessly claim to pursue. Note the spelling, which doubles the l in excelled and excelling but not in the base form.
1verbexcelTo be exceptionally good at something.
“She excels at anything involving numbers.”
Also accepted in games: shine
To excel is to rise out above. Latin ex, out, is joined to a root that survives in culmen, a height or a summit, and the same height turns up in culminate.
Proto-Indo-European
*kelH-
Latin
excello
Old French
exceller
Middle English
excellen
English, today
excel
Built from
From Middle English excellen, from Old French exceller, from Latin excello, excelsum; ex (“out”) + cellō, an unattested verb root found in culmen (“height, top”); Compare French exceller. See also culminate, column.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA