marvellous

comparative more marvellous · superlative most marvellous · alternative US marvelous

1. UKExciting wonder or surprise; astonishing; wonderful.

   I went to a marvellous party last week.

   1 more example

   At first glance, importance sampling seems like a marvellous solution to any posterior simulation problem.

   2003, Gary Koop, Bayesian Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., page 80

comparative more marvellous · superlative most marvellous · alternative US marvelous

1. archaicflat adverbMarvellously (wondrously; very; extremely).

   Near-synonyms: powerful, plenty

   1 more example

   This extract is taken from a most interesting Relation of the Commodities of Nova Hispania, and the Manners of the Inhabitants, written at the special request of Richard Hakluyt, by Henry Hawks, who had lived five years as a merchant in Mexico. ¶ Mexico is a great city: it hath more than fifty thousand households, whereof there are not past five or six thousand houses of Spaniards; all the others are people of the country, which live under the Spaniards' laws. […] Round about the town there are very many gardens and orchards of the fruits of the country, marvellous fair, where the people have great recreation. ¶ There are near about this city of Mexico many rivers and standing waters, which have in them a monstrous kind of fish, which is marvellous ravening, and a great devourer of men and cattle. He is wont to sleep upon the dry land many times, and if there come in the meantime any man or beast and wake or disquiet him, he speedeth well if he get from him. He is like unto a serpent, saving that he doth not fly, neither hath he wings. ¶ There is west out of Mexico a port town which is on the South Sea, called Puerto de Acapulco, whereat there are ships which they have ordinarily for the navigation of China, which they have newly found. This port is threescore leagues from Mexico.

   1906 [1625], Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas, quoting Henry Hawks, “The City of Mexico in 1570”, in E. E. Speight, editor, The Romance of the Merchant Venturers, Hodder and Stoughton, pages 66-68

   Synonyms: powerful, plenty