Fabulous

How to spell fabulous

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce fabulous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fabulous mean?

1. adjectiveExtremely good, impressive, or enjoyable.
2. adjectiveKnown only from myth or legend; not real.

Fabulous in a sentence

• The hotel served a fabulous breakfast on the terrace.

• The old map marked a fabulous city of gold that explorers never found.

• She looked fabulous in the new tailored suit.

• Medieval texts described fabulous beasts such as the griffin and the dragon.

Where does fabulous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin fabulosus, meaning 'celebrated in story' or 'famed in legend', which was built on fabula, a 'tale' or 'fable', and ultimately on the verb fari, 'to speak'. English took it in during the 1400s, by way of French, with the original sense being 'belonging to fable', that is, mythical or known only from old stories. Over the centuries the meaning drifted from 'the stuff of legend' toward the modern colloquial sense of 'astonishingly good', much as we still call something 'incredible' when we simply mean wonderful. The same fabula root sits inside the everyday words 'fable' and 'confabulate', which is a useful reminder that the middle of fabulous is spelled with a single l before the -ous ending. The common spelling slip is doubling that l or writing -us instead of -ous.

How the word is built

• fabul- (from Latin fabula: story, fable)
• -ous (full of, characterised by)