Wonderful
adjectiveInspiring delight or admiration; extremely good or pleasing.
How to spell wonderful
9 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce wonderful
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does wonderful mean?
- adjectiveInspiring delight or admiration; extremely good or pleasing.
Wonderful in a sentence
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The view from the hotel balcony was absolutely wonderful.
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She received wonderful news about the job offer this morning.
Where does wonderful come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This word is built from the native English noun 'wonder', which descends from the Old English 'wundor', meaning a marvel or an astonishing sight, plus the suffix '-ful', meaning 'full of'. So at its root 'wonderful' literally meant 'full of wonder', that is, capable of producing amazement. The compound is recorded from around the 1100s and at first leaned hard on the idea of something marvellous or even supernatural before softening over the centuries into the everyday sense of 'very pleasing' or 'excellent'. The '-ful' suffix here keeps only a single 'l', a point worth remembering, because adverbs and other words built from it (wonderfully) add the second 'l' later. Its cousins 'wonder' and 'wondrous' come from the same Germanic stock, and the spelling trap most adults face is the silent, swallowed middle: it is wonDERful, not 'wonderfull' and not 'wondeful'.
How the word is built
- wonder (from Old English wundor: a marvel, an astonishing thing)
- -ful (full of, characterised by)
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