How to keep your sense of wonder. Find more ways to say wonder, along with related words, antonyms and example phrases at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. As a reminder that seeking logic in the development of language is a foolhardy exercise, the word wondrous, by contrast, has drifted very little from its original meaning over the centuries. SOCRATES: I see, my dear Theaetetus, that Theodorus had a true insight into your nature when he said that you were a philosopher; for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. The newest meanings of the words mouse or cookie show that language change can be quickly and universally accepted (many people may insist that literally can’t be used for emphasis, as in “I literally died laughing,” but no one claims that a mouse can’t control the cursor on your monitor). This change happened gradually, however: well into the 1800s, Abraham Lincoln was still using it to mean “astonishing”: It is not wonderful that they were slow, very slow, to acknowledge the truth of such denunciations, and to join the ranks of their denouncers, in a hue and cry against themselves.—Abraham Lincoln, Address before the Springfield Washington Temperance Society, 22 February 1842.
Initially, the word was only used in reference to miracles, a synonym of supernatural. Fly steals focus during debate, litany But, if we stop to be amazed by the wonder that surrounds us it’s as if the whole world changes from black and white to color! all outward behaviors seemed ever to abhor. Will the wonders never cease? Learn a new word every day. The word’s original meaning seems to be hiding in plain sight: “full of wonder.” Yet it is very seldom used in that way anymore; today wonderful is most frequently used to mean “extremely good” (as in “a wonderful meal”). A sense of wonder can be triggered by humor such as parody.
Jowett; "wonder" in Aristotle.) Noah Webster was working on his great dictionary at the time Jefferson’s letter was written, and indeed he only presented one sense of wonderful in his 1828 dictionary: WONDERFUL, adjective Adapted to excite wonder or admiration; exciting surprise; strange; astonishing. stare decisis Pence takes aim at Biden DC support. How to use a word that (literally) drives some pe... Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words? Another word is wonderstruck. Sometimes the changes that we observe in language are big and obvious, and sometimes they are very subtle indeed. Like with everything in life, it’s so easy to get bored and move into autopilot. Regaining that sense of wonder is not about returning to an oblivious, dependent state. Indeed, all of the instances of wonderful in the King James version of the Bible are used to mean “astonishing” and not “extremely good.” It’s very clear that, when used this way, wonderful is by no means always a positive thing. (Plato, Theaetetus 155c-d, tr. Wonder in the sense approaching awe is a universal experience found also in children (picture a child at the circus) and perhaps even in higher-order primates and some other animals. Golf has witnessed a good deal of medical wonderment. For example, after Hamlet’s mother worries about his show of madness and asks him to come to talk to her, he says “my wit’s diseas’d” and then: O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! Moving from tragedy to comedy, in Much Ado About Nothing, the respectable Leonato, father of Beatrice, remarks on the sudden change of her attitude toward her sparring partner Benedick: No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she, should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in. Indeed, seeing examples of the word used in its original meaning can be jarring—take this passage in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison written in 1823: I should then say that, in some of the particulars, Mr. Adams’s memory has led him into unquestionable error. In the 17th and 18th centuries, wonderful seems to have long been a go-to word in the golden age of the pamphleteer: A narrative of a maid lately burnt to death in a strange and wonderful manner by the force of a Chymical Spirit seizing upon her—Anonymous pamphlet, 1678, A most true and certain Account, how one Charles Bennet, a child but three years old, doth speak Latine, Greek, and Hebrew, though never taught those Languages; and answers all Questions relating to the Bible &c. in a wonderfull manner.—The Miraculous Child, Manchester, England, 1679, A Faithful Account of many Wonderful and Surprising things, that have befallen several Bewitched and Possessed persons in New England—Cotton Mather, 1689, Of the wonderful Wild Man that was nursed in the woods of Germany by a Wild Beast, hunted and taken in Toyls; how he behaved himself like a dumb Creature, and is a Christian like one of us, being call’d Peter; and how he was brought to Court all in green, to the great Astonishment of Quality and Gentry.—It Cannot Rain but it Pours, John Arbuthnot, London, 1726. They look around in wonder as I point to various details – plaited camel-hair ropes, painted designs on pillars and roof slats – stretching my less-than-adequate knowledge of the great man to satisfy their curiosity. therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.—Job 42:3. The word once described the most astonishing occurrences. It is now decidedly less supernatural. It describes an emotional reaction such as amazement or awe for readers or viewers suddenly confronting, understanding, or seeing a concept that they did not previously think was possible. Keep the faith. The older we get, the more it seems to me like that.


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