Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Highly pleasing or agreeable to the senses, especially of taste or smell.
  • adjective Very pleasant; delightful.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pleasing in the highest degree; most sweet or grateful to the senses; affording exquisite pleasure: as, a delicious viand; a delicious odor; delicious fruit or wine.
  • Most pleasing to the mind; yielding exquisite delight; delightful.
  • Delicate; luxurious; dainty; addicted to or seeking pleasure.
  • Synonyms Delicious, Delightful, luscious, savory. Delicious is highly agreeable to some sense, generally that of taste, sometimes that of smell or of hearing. Delightful is highly agreeable to the mind; it is always supersensuous, except perhaps as sight or hearing is sometimes the immediate means to high mental pleasure. Delicious food, odors, music; delightful thoughts, hopes, anticipations, news.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Affording exquisite pleasure; delightful; most sweet or grateful to the senses, especially to the taste; charming.
  • adjective obsolete Addicted to pleasure; seeking enjoyment; luxurious; effeminate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Pleasing to taste; tasty.
  • adjective colloquial Metaphorically pleasing to taste; pleasing to the eyes or mind.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective extremely pleasing to the sense of taste
  • noun variety of sweet eating apples
  • adjective greatly pleasing or entertaining

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Anglo-Norman, from Late Latin dēliciōsus, pleasing, from Latin dēlicia, pleasure : dē-, intensive pref.; see de– + lacere, to entice.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English delicious, from Anglo-Norman delicious from Old French delicious, delicieus, from Late Latin dēliciōsus "delicate, delicious" from dēliciae "delights", plural of dēlicia "pleasure" from dēlicēre "to allure, entice," from de- "away" + lacēre "to lure, deceive". Displaced native Middle English este ("delicious, favorable") (from Old English ēste ("delicious, dainty, luxurious, delicate")), Middle English wunlic, wunli ("delicious, joyous") (from Old English wynlīċ ("pleasant, beatiful, joyful")), Old English ēstelīc ("delicious, delicate, dainty").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Penny Arcade (7/12/06):

    "What does it mean to be delicious? Can something untasteable posess some flavor that is metatastual? Could, then, an idea be delicious?"

    December 6, 2007

  • YES! Ideas CAN be delicious. See my list "Picture THIS on your marquee" for examples.

    December 20, 2007

  • I lifted my face to the rain. The night air was delicious with the smell of damp woodland, streaked with the odors of wet tarmac, cordite, diesel and the seductive whiff of the motorcycle leathers. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.

    March 27, 2012