Glorious

How to spell glorious

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce glorious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does glorious mean?

1. adjectiveHaving great beauty, splendour, or delight; deserving great praise or admiration.

Glorious in a sentence

• We spent a glorious week on the coast in perfect sunshine.

• The orchestra delivered a glorious performance of the symphony.

Where does glorious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin gloriosus, meaning 'full of glory' or 'boastful', which was built on the noun gloria, meaning 'fame', 'renown', or 'praise'. English picked it up in the early 1300s through Old French glorios, applying it first to things worthy of honour and heavenly splendour, especially in religious writing. Over time the sense broadened from sacred majesty to any kind of magnificent beauty or delight, so that a sunset or a holiday could be called glorious. Interestingly, the Latin gloriosus could also mean 'vainglorious' or 'bragging', a shade preserved in the stock phrase 'miles gloriosus', the boastful soldier of Roman comedy. The spelling trap lives in that -ious ending: the 'i' is easy to drop, yet it is the fossil of the Latin -iosus that the word has carried since the start.

How the word is built

• glor- (from Latin gloria: glory, renown)
• -ious (full of, characterised by)