exceptional

adj 1: far beyond what is usual in magnitude or degree; "a night of

exceeding darkness"; "an exceptional memory";

"olympian efforts to save the city from bankruptcy";

"the young Mozart's prodigious talents" [syn: {exceeding},

{olympian}, {prodigious}, {surpassing}]

2: surpassing what is common or usual or expected; "he paid

especial attention to her"; "exceptional kindness"; "a

matter of particular and unusual importance"; "a special

occasion"; "a special reason to confide in her"; "what's

so special about the year 2000?" [syn: {especial(a)}, {particular(a)},

{special}]

3: (psychology) deviating widely from a norm of physical or

mental ability; used especially of children below normal

in intelligence; "special educational provisions for

exceptional children" [syn: {exceptional(a)}]

exception

An error condition that changes the normal {flow of control}

in a program. An exception may be generated ("raised") by

{hardware} or {software}. Hardware exceptions include

{reset}, {interrupt} or a signal from a {memory management

unit}. Exceptions may be generated by the {arithmetic logic

unit} or {floating-point unit} for numerical errors such as

divide by zero, {overflow} or {underflow} or {instruction

decoding} errors such as privileged, reserved, {trap} or

undefined instructions. Software exceptions are even more

varied and the term could be applied to any kind of error

checking which alters the normal behaviour of the program.

(1994-10-31)