Standard Lemma guide

wonderful

adj · adv · 4 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /ˈwʌndəfl̩/
  • Canada, General-American: /ˈwʌndɚfl̩/
  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • Australian, New-Zealand: /ˈwɐndəfl̩/
  • Northern-England: /ˈwʊndəfl̩/
  • CMU ARPABET: W AH1 N D ER0 F AH0 L Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Tending to excite wonder; surprising, extraordinary.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • His delusion was not wonderful, but most natural.
  • It is not wonderful that Mrs Smith declined to visit the beer garden, in view of her militant temperance. [=It is no wonder that she declined.]

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: wondrous, amazing, astonishing, marvelous, awesome, astounding, awe-inspiring, awful, sensational, awesomesauce, based, beatific, bewildering, blissful, celestial, cool, delightful, divine, dope, enchanting, excellent, extraordinary, far out, fire, heavenlike, heavenly, hellagood, impressive, incredible, inspiring, goshwow, glorious, gnarly, goated, grand, grandiose, great, groovy, magnificent, major, majestic, marvellous, mystifying, mythic, neat, lit, outstanding, phenomenal, powerful, rad, righteous, selcouth, splendent, stupendous, stupefying, sublime, surpassing, terrific, tight, unbelievable, unreal, wicked, wonderful

Antonyms: unsurprising, unremarkable, common

2

adj

Meaning 2

Surprisingly excellent; very good or admirable, extremely impressive.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • They served a wonderful six-course meal.
  • What appears to be wonderful may turn out to be anything but.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: great, amazing, marvelous, fantastic, awesome, terrific, ace, admirable, awe-inspiring, badass, bang on, bang-up, studly, based, beatific, beneship, bitching, blissful, bomb, brilliant, bully, celestial, cher, choice, chronic, chur, cock on, commendable, cool, copacetic, crackerjack, cushty, dank, def, delightful, divine, dope, epic, excellent, exceptional, exemplary, exquisite, extraordinary, fab, fabulous, fantabulosa, fierce, finger-lickin' good, fire, fireball, first-rate, fly, frabjous, glorious, gnarly, goated, grouse, heavenlike, heavenly, immaculate, impeccable, incredible, kick-ass, kicking, killer, lash, lautitious, lit, magnificent, nang, outstanding, out of sight, phat, peak, peng, phenomenal, pog, poggers, priceless, pukka, quality, rad, radical, remarkable, rum, sensational, sick, slap-up, slick, spectacular, spiffing, splendid, spot on, stellar, sterling, stunning, super, superb, superior, sweet, swell, tight, top, top-drawer, top-hole, top-notch, top-of-the-range, top-shelf, topping, tubular, tuff, well-done, wicked, wicked pissah, wonderful, worldie, acceptable, agreeable, all right, as fine as Dick's hatband, bene, bodacious, bona, dandy as candy, decent, enjoyable, fine, goloptious, good as wheat in the bin, gratifying, lovely, neat, nice, not bad, perfect, pleasant, pleasing, positive, right as rain, satisfying, solid, stupendous, sweet as a nut, well, wondrous

Antonyms: terrible, horrible, horrific

3

adv

Meaning 3

Exceedingly, to a great extent.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: dialectal, not-comparable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: wonderfully, wondrously

Antonyms: none provided

4

adjective satellite

Meaning 4

extraordinarily good or great ; used especially as intensifiers

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • a fantastic trip to the Orient
  • the film was fantastic!
  • a howling success
  • a marvelous collection of rare books
  • had a rattling conversation about politics
  • a tremendous achievement

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: fantastic, grand, howling(a), marvelous, marvellous, rattling(a), terrific, tremendous, wondrous

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From Middle English wonderful, wondirful, from Old English wundorful (“wonderful”), from Proto-West Germanic *wundrafull, equivalent to wonder + -ful. Cognate Dutch wondervol (“wonderful”), German wundervoll (“wonderful”). Compare Old English wuldorfull (“glorious”).

Across languages

Translations

97 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: عَجِيب (ʕajīb) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Arabic: رهيب (rahīb) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Armenian: հրաշալի (hrašali) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Armenian: հիանալի (hianali) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Armenian: զարմանալի (zarmanali) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Belarusian: цудо́ўны (cudówny) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Bulgarian: чуде́сен (čudésen) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Bulgarian: удиви́телен (udivítelen) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Catalan: meravellós — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Chinese Mandarin: 棒 (bàng) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Chinese Mandarin: 奇妙 (qímiào) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Czech: skvělý — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Czech: báječný — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Danish: vidunderlig — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Dutch: fantastisch — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Dutch: heerlijk — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Dutch: wonderbaar — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Dyirbal: mali — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Esperanto: mirinda — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Estonian: imeline — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Finnish: hieno — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Finnish: mainio — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Finnish: loistava — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Finnish: ihana — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Finnish: ihmeellinen — excellent, extremely impressive
  • French: merveilleux — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Galician: marabilloso — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Georgian: შესანიშნავი (šesanišnavi) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Georgian: მშვენიერი (mšvenieri) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Georgian: საუცხოო (saucxoo) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Georgian: საოცარი (saocari) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Georgian: სასწაულებრივი (sasc̣aulebrivi) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • German: wunderbar — excellent, extremely impressive
  • German: wundervoll — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Gothic: 𐍅𐌿𐌻𐌸𐌰𐌲𐍃 (wulþags) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Greek: θαυμάσιος (thavmásios) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Greek: εκπληκτικός (ekpliktikós) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Greek: υπέροχος (ypérochos) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Greek: έξοχος (éxochos) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Greek: καταπληκτικός (katapliktikós) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Ancient Greek: θαυμάσιος (thaumásios) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Hebrew: נפלא (niflá) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Hindi: अद्भुत (adbhut) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Hindi: कमाल (kamāl) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Hungarian: csodálatos — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Icelandic: yndislegur — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Icelandic: dásamlegur — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Icelandic: undursamlegur — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Ingrian: ihmelliin — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Ingrian: ihmekäs — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Interlingua: meraviliose — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Irish: iontach — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Italian: meraviglioso — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Italian: stupendo — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Italian: fantastico — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Italian: splendido — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Italian: eccellente — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Italian: impressionante — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Italian: ottimo — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Italian: favoloso — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Japanese: 素晴しい (subarashii) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Kazakh: таңғажайып (tañğajaiyp) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Kazakh: ғажайып (ğajaiyp) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Korean: 놀라운 (nollaun) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Latin: mirābilis — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Latin: mīrus — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Latvian: brīnišķīgs — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Livonian: imli — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Luxembourgish: wonnerbar — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Macedonian: прекрасен (prekrasen) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Khiamniungan Naga: āthǖngō — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Norman: mangnifique — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Norwegian: underfull — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Norwegian Bokmål: vidunderlig — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Norwegian Nynorsk: vidunderleg — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Old English: wundorlīċ — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Old Saxon: wundarlik — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Persian: شگفت (šegaft) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Persian: شگرف (šegarf) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Plautdietsch: groosoatich — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Polish: cudowny — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Polish: zdumiewający — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Polish: zadziwiający — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Portuguese: maravilhoso — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Russian: замеча́тельный (zamečátelʹnyj) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Russian: чуде́сный (čudésnyj) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Russian: восхити́тельный (vosxitítelʹnyj) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Scottish Gaelic: mìorbhaileach — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Serbo-Croatian: чу̏десан — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Serbo-Croatian: čȕdesan — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Slovak: úžasný — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Swedish: underbar — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Tocharian B: ākteke — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Turkish: harika — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Ukrainian: вражаючий (vražajučyj) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Ukrainian: чудовий (čudovyj) — excellent, extremely impressive
  • Uzbek: ajoyib — excellent, extremely impressive
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