glorious
- 1Excellent or wonderful; delightful in a way that inspires admiration or joy.
The orchestra gave a glorious performance that left the audience speechless.
They spent a glorious week wandering through the markets and coastline of the old town.
Similarwonderful, splendid, magnificent, marvelous, superb
Oppositeawful, dreadful, terrible
Note
Here the praise has gone everyday: the thing is simply very good, with none of the honor sense attached. Milton could already speak of "thy glorious works" in Paradise Lost (1667). Sports writing has made "a glorious opportunity" a fixed phrase for a clear chance to score. In Alasdair Lamont's 2012 BBC Sport report, the chance is promptly wasted when Borini strikes the post.
- 2Deserving or receiving great honor and praise through admirable qualities or noble deeds.
The general led his troops to a glorious triumph against impossible odds.
History remembers her glorious sacrifice for the cause of freedom.
Similarillustrious, heroic, noble, celebrated, famous
Oppositeignominious, shameful, dishonorable
Note
The honor sense sits closest to glory itself. The word came into Middle English through Anglo-Norman and Old French from Latin gloriosus, and it pushed aside the native wulderful, from Old English wuldorfull. It belongs to deeds, victories and causes that earn public honor. Shakespeare's Othello mourns the "pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war," and the glory there is the fame that war confers, not any pleasure in it.
- 3
Less common meanings
- 4In high spirits; merry and elated, especially from drink.
After the third round of toasts, the sailors grew glorious and broke into song.
Kings may be bleſt, but Tam was glorious, / O'er a' the ills o' life victorious!
1790, Robert Burns, “Tam o’ Shanter. A Tale.”Note
A drinker's glory, now archaic. In Robert Burns's "Tam o' Shanter" (1790), "Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious," and the line sets royal bliss against a man happily drunk. Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681) gives the Sons of Belial "a Glorious Time." A modern ear will hear the "wonderful" meaning instead, so the sense works as period color, not current slang.
- 5Eager for glory or distinction; ambitious for renown.
Note
Ambition once counted as glory. In Shakespeare's Cymbeline (1611), "most miserable / Is the desire that's glorious," and glorious means the desire is hungry for renown, not that it is admirable. The sense is obsolete. A modern reader will take any glorious person as praised, so use the word this way only when quoting or deliberately imitating older English.
- 6Excessively proud or boastful; given to vain self-display.
Make heauen to frowne and euery fixed ſtarre To ſucke vp poiſon from the Mooriſh Fens, And poure it in this glorious Tyrants throat.
c. 1587, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. The First PartSimilarboastful, haughty, ostentatious, vainglorious
Note
Pride on display is the fault here. This is less a longing for fame than the ambitious sense describes, and more a parade of self-importance. Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great calls for poison poured "in this glorious Tyrants throat." The meaning sits close to vainglorious, which is built on the same word, and to haughty and boastful. Like its ambitious neighbor, it is obsolete and reads as praise today.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English "glorious", borrowed via Anglo-Norman "glorius" and Old French "glorïos" from Latin "glōriōsus". It replaced the native Old English word "wuldorfull", and is equivalent to glory + -ous.