delightful

Etymology

It is formed from English delight + -ful.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The noun, spelled delite until the 16th century,^[3] is from Anglo-Norman delite, also delit (“great pleasure”),^[2][3] from delitier (“to please greatly, charm”),^[2][3] from Latin dēlectō (“to allure, charm, please”),^[2][3] a frequentative of dēliciō (“to entice”).^[2][3] The modern spelling follows light and flight.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Giving delight, very pleasant: before 1400, in a religious lyric printed in C. Brown's Religious Lyrics of the 14th Century.^[2] The Shorter Oxford also has late Middle English.^[4] Etymonline dates the word to about 1400, but in the sense "joyous",^[3] and puts "highly pleasing" only in the 1520s,^[3] as does Dictionary.com;^[5] the Merriam-Webster Unabridged has about 1530.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The two senses differ in who feels the delight: the thing that gives it, or the person who has it.^[2] The second, "greatly pleased, joyful", the OED finds from 1534, in Heywood's Play of Love, and now calls rare;^[2] the Shorter Oxford and the Merriam-Webster Unabridged treat it as obsolete, the Shorter Oxford with a span from the late 16th to the late 17th century.^[4][7] Johnson (1755) gave both senses together: "pleasant; charming; full of delight".^[6] The first sense is now very wide in its application.^[7]

Timeline

• before 1400 – giving delight, very pleasant.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1520s.^[3]
• 1534 – greatly pleased, joyful.^[2] Etymonline dates a sense "joyous" to about 1400.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Highly pleasing; giving great pleasure; charming: a delightful afternoon by the lake.^[7][8][2]
2. (rare or obsolete) Feeling delight; greatly pleased or joyful.^[2][7][4]

Word family

• delightfully
• delightfulness
• undelightful

Related words

• delight

Usage notes

The Merriam-Webster Unabridged, in its discussion of synonyms such as delicious and delectable, calls delightful very wide in its applications: it may describe anything that gives keen, lively pleasure to the mind, the heart or the senses.^[7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins