wondrous

Etymology

It is an alteration of wonders (“marvellous, wondrous”),^[2][3][4][5] originally the genitive of the noun wonder,^[6][3][7][5] with its ending replaced by -ous after words such as marvellous.^[2][4][5][8] Etymonline takes it as partly also formed directly from English wonder + -ous.^[8] The MED notes that the Middle English form wondres could likewise be read as the noun with the suffix.^[6] Dictionary.com calls it a metathetic variant of the Middle English word, and compares German Wunders.^[9] Johnson saw it as contracted from wonderous.^[10] Wonder is from Proto-Germanic *wundrą.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Wonderful, exciting wonder: 1509, in Hawes's Pastime of Pleasure,^[2][3] about 1500 in Etymonline.^[8] The older wonders, marvellous, is recorded in the Cursor Mundi from before 1400.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Middle English wonders could mean marvellous, but also surprised, and as an adverb "extremely".^[6] Wondrous took over the adjective sense, and as an adverb, "wonderfully, to a wonderful degree", it is recorded from 1557.^[2][3][8] Johnson (1755) called the adverb use barbarous.^[10] Both uses are now archaic or literary;^[4][11] the adverb survives in poetic phrases like Coleridge's grew wondrous cold.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1400 – wonders, marvellous.^[6]
• 1509 – wondrous, wonderful.^[2][3]
• 1557 – adverb, wonderfully.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) Causing wonder or astonishment; marvellous: a wondrous view of the mountains.^[3][12][11]

Adverb

1. (archaic) Wonderfully, to a remarkable degree: It was wondrous dark.^[3][12][11]

Word family

• wondrously
• wondrousness

Related words

• wonder
• wonderful
• marvellous

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ 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.
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt