exceptional

exceptional, exceptionable

These adjectives relate to different meanings of exception. Exceptional means ‘unusual, not typical’, i.e. ‘forming an exception’ in a favourable sense:

• Schizophrenes are often held to be people of exceptional charm —D. Cory, 1977

• You could get an exceptional trade-in price for your old car —Sunday Express, 1980.

Exceptionable means ‘to which exception may be taken’, i.e. ‘open to objection’:

• Prince later wrote to Gould when he was in Australia, complaining that Alfred Newton had been ‘far, far too complimentary’ about Lear's part in the publication, ‘particularly when we know that most of the subscribers are of the opinion that his plates are almost the only exceptionable part of your work’ —I. Tree, 1991.

It is not a common word (there are only a few examples in the OEC), and it is more often used in the negative form unexceptionable, meaning ‘not open to objection, perfectly satisfactory’. All the more surprising, then, that exceptionable is occasionally found used erroneously for exceptional:

• ☒ The establishment Whigs…came to argue that resistance was only allowable in exceptionable circumstances, such as those of 1688 —T. Harris, 1993.