Definitions

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

  • adjective Remarkable or extraordinary; wonderful.
  • adverb To a wonderful or remarkable extent.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a wonderful or surprising degree; remarkably; exceedingly.
  • Of a kind or degree to excite wonder; wonderful; marvelous; strauge.

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

  • adjective Wonderful; astonishing; admirable; marvelous; such as excite surprise and astonishment; strange.
  • adverb In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully.

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

  • adjective Amazing, inspiring awe, "to be marvelled at".
  • adverb In a wonderful degree; remarkably.

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

  • adverb (used as an intensifier) extremely well
  • adjective extraordinarily good or great ; used especially as intensifiers

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Late Middle English wondrous, metathetic variation of wonders (adj., "wondrous, wonderful"), genitive of wonder ("wonder, miracle"), from Old English wundor ("wonder, miracle"), from Proto-Germanic *wundran (“wonder”). Compare Dutch wonders, German Wunder.

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Examples

  • I will tell, in fact, how this strange man carried with him, in his bag, instruments that I had never seen before then, which he called his wondrous machines.

    The Name of the Rose Eco, Umberto 1980

  • O God, who in wondrous wise didst raise up blessed Joan for the defense of her faith and her country: grant, we beseech thee, through her intercession, that thy church, overcoming all the wiles of her enemies, may enjoy unceasing peace.

    May 30 -- St Joan of Arc John 2009

  • With the sale of "D is for Delicious" (which means I sold 2 out of 5 stories written in wondrous Michigan), I can declare that Clarion was, writing-wise, only a major waste of time.

    mroctober: Clarion wasn't a huge waste after all... mroctober 2010

  • Telling tall tales Some pretenders to glory spin wondrous yarns.

    Bill Burke 12/2001 2010

  • With the sale of "D is for Delicious" (which means I sold 2 out of 5 stories written in wondrous Michigan), I can declare that Clarion was, writing-wise, only a major waste of time.

    Clarion wasn't a huge waste after all... mroctober 2010

  • O God, who in wondrous wise didst raise up blessed Joan for the defense of her faith and her country: grant, we beseech thee, through her intercession, that thy church, overcoming all the wiles of her enemies, may enjoy unceasing peace.

    May 30 -- St Joan of Arc John 2009

  • God works in wondrous ways destroying the wisdom of the wise and frustrating the intelligence of the intelligent (1 Cor 1: 19).

    The Chinese are Coming 2008

  • Tear-drops have chafed mine eyelids and rail down in wondrous wise, v. 53.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Tear-drops have chafed mine eyelids and rail down in wondrous wise,

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Kipling has caught up in wondrous songs for the future centuries to sing.

    These Bones Shall Rise Again 1910

Comments

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  • WeirdNet is wondrous strange in picking a top sense which two of the dictionary.com sources mark as archaic.

    June 16, 2008