Admiration

How to spell admiration

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce admiration

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does admiration mean?

1. nounA feeling of respect, approval, and warm regard for someone or something.

Admiration in a sentence

• Her colleagues expressed deep admiration for the way she handled the crisis.

• The carefully restored old house drew admiration from everyone on the street.

Where does admiration come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Admiration comes from the Latin admiratio, a noun meaning 'a wondering at' or 'amazement', which was built on the verb admirari, 'to wonder at' or 'to marvel'. That verb joined the prefix ad-, meaning 'at' or 'towards', to mirari, 'to wonder', the same root that literally meant being struck by something marvellous. English took the word in through Old French in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, where it first carried a stronger sense of astonishment before softening into the warm approval and respect we mean today. The very same mirari root sits inside the everyday words 'miracle', 'mirror', and 'marvel', all sharing the idea of looking at something wondrous. Remembering that buried 'mir' (wonder) is a useful guard against misspelling the unstressed middle of the word, which can blur into a vague schwa.

How the word is built

• ad- (at, towards)
• mir (to wonder, from Latin mirari)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)