Awesome

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈɔː.səm/

Definitions

1. Inspiring great admiration or awe through impressive qualities or characteristics
2. Causing a feeling of amazement or overwhelming respect due to remarkable qualities
3. Evoking wonder and deep admiration because of its striking or excellent nature

Etymology: The most surprising turn in "awesome" is how far it moved from its root. Its base is "awe," and the suffix "-some" means "inclined to" or "causing" (as in "fearsome" or "handsome"), so the older sense was something that inspires awe. That sense goes back through Middle English "eiful," meaning terrible or frightening, to Old English "eġeful," which meant fearful. Fear, reverence and wonder were close neighbours in that older vocabulary, and the word sat on the frightening side of that line for centuries. The modern slang sense is much newer and has an odd origin. In the 1970 film "Tora! Tora! Tora!", Japan's Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto used the word to describe the "awesome" industrial potential of the United States. The film's American usage helped the word spread as a casual term for anything superb, which in turn pushed its original meaning toward the phrase "awe-inspiring."

Synonyms: amazing, incredible, fantastic

Antonyms: terrible, awful