Amazing

How to spell amazing

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce amazing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does amazing mean?

1. adjectiveCausing great surprise, wonder, or admiration; extremely impressive.

Amazing in a sentence

• The view from the summit was absolutely amazing.

• She made an amazing recovery after the surgery.

Where does amazing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows out of the Old English verb amasian, meaning 'to bewilder, confound, or stun', which combined an intensifying a- prefix with a root tied to maze, originally a state of confusion or delirium rather than the garden puzzle we picture today. For centuries 'amaze' carried a much stronger flavour than it does now: to be amazed was to be utterly dumbfounded, even driven out of one's wits. The adjective 'amazing', formed by adding the participle ending -ing, gradually softened from 'stupefying' to the everyday sense of 'wonderful' or 'astonishing'. The same root survives in the noun 'maze', and that shared ancestry is a useful memory hook, since the heart of 'amazing' is literally a 'maze'. Because the word is native Germanic rather than a Latin borrowing, its spelling is refreshingly regular, with no hidden silent letters.

How the word is built

• a- (intensifying prefix, from Old English)
• maze (to bewilder, confuse)
• -ing (present participle/adjective suffix)