wonderful
adjective
- beautiful or praiseworthy
- generally positive, admirable
- very skilled at
- beneficial, useful, possibly for health
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈwʌndəfl̩/ / /ˈwʌndɚfl̩/ / /ˈwɐndəfl̩/
adj
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”).
- Tending to excite wonder; surprising, extraordinary.
“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.]”
- Surprisingly excellent; very good or admirable, extremely impressive.
“They served a wonderful six-course meal.”
“What appears to be wonderful may turn out to be anything but.”
adv
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”).
- Exceedingly, to a great extent.
“[…] wherein they were no sooner entered, but they saw that it was wonderful dark, and it seemed unto them that it should be a very large hall, and there they heard very fearful howlings, as though there had been a legion of hell-hounds […]”
“It was wonderful stormy weather that night, and it so befell that there was sailing by the Jutland coast a little north of the east mouth of the Limfirth a man of Iceland bound south […]”