WONDER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Wonder

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/wˈəndər/ Listen

verb

Wonder v. i. (past & past part. wondered; pres. part. wondering)

To be affected with surprise or admiration; to be struck with astonishment; to be amazed; to marvel. "I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals." "We cease to wonder at what we understand."

To feel doubt and curiosity; to wait with uncertain expectation; to query in the mind; as, he wondered why they came. "I wonder, in my soul, What you would ask me, that I should deny."

noun

Wonder n.

That emotion which is excited by novelty, or the presentation to the sight or mind of something new, unusual, strange, great, extraordinary, or not well understood; surprise; astonishment; admiration; amazement. "They were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him." "Wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance." Note: Wonder expresses less than astonishment, and much less than amazement. It differs from admiration, as now used, in not being necessarily accompanied with love, esteem, or approbation.

A cause of wonder; that which excites surprise; a strange thing; a prodigy; a miracle. " Babylon, the wonder of all tongues." "To try things oft, and never to give over, doth wonders." "I am as a wonder unto many."

Seven wonders of the world. See in the Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction.

adjective

Wonder adj. Wonderful. (Obs.) "After that he said a wonder thing."

adverb

Wonder adv. Wonderfully. (Obs.)

See images of 'Wonder'

Etymology of 'Wonder'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Wonder" Quotes from Famous Books

... was just saying to himself, "I wonder what keeps papa so long," when he heard his step on ...

— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... "I wonder where the town is?" asked the consul, with a nervous glance at the fishermen. One of them told him that what he ...

— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... They are squatting around the smouldering embers of a sage-brush fire, sleeping and dozing. I am riding slowly and carefully along the road that happens to be ridable just here, and am fairly past them before being seen. As I gradually vanish in the moonlit air I wonder what they think it was - that strange-looking object that so silently and mysteriously glided past. It is safe to warrant they think me anything but flesh and blood, as they rouse each other and peer at my shadowy form ...

— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... elements, it seems to us, both of truth and falsehood. It casts off gross mistakes, announces some fundamental realities, overlooks, perverts, exaggerates, some essential facts in the case. There is so much in it that is grateful and beautiful that we cannot wonder at its reception where the tender instincts of the heart are stronger than the stern decisions of the conscience, where the kindly sentiments usurp the province of the critical reason and sit in judgment upon evidence for the construction of a ...

— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... places God, not at the commencement, but at the end of things, God becoming conscious and intelligent in humanity. If, then, Hegel teaches that God himself has had a progressive development, it is no wonder he should assert that the idea of God has also had an historic development, the last term of which is an intelligent God. But he who believes that the idea of God as the infinite and the perfect ...

— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

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