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delightful

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English deliteful, delitfull, equivalent to delight +‎ -ful.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /dəˈlaɪt.fəl/
  • Audio (General American):(file)
  • Hyphenation: de‧light‧ful

Adjective

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delightful (comparative more delightful or delightfuler or delightfuller, superlative most delightful or delightfulest or delightfullest)

  1. Pleasant; pleasing, bringing enjoyment, satisfaction, or pleasure.
    • 1853, Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “The Two Brothers”, in Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, editor, The Lewis Carroll Picture Book [], London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1899, →OCLC, page 22:
      What? a higher delight to be drawn from the sight / Of fish full of life and of glee? / What a noodle you are! ’tis delightfuller far / To kill them than let them go free!
    • 1888, Venier Voldo, “Memoria in Eterna”, in Poems from the Pacific: The West’s Reply to England’s Laureate, 2nd edition, San Francisco, Calif.: The Bancroft Company, →OCLC, page 134:
      O, Joy! quicker than fire! O, Hope of things! / O, gracious gladness mighty with delight! / O, subtle sweet, delightfuler than might! / Ah, me, no fiercer laughing unction springs / From the fair Hope of things!
    • 1908 July 6, S[amuel] L[anghorne] Clemens, “A Letter from Mark Twain: Innocence at Home”, in Collier’s, volume XLI, number 20, New York, N.Y.: P[eter] F[enelon] Collier & Son, published 8 August 1908, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 22, column 2:
      Hon. Collier Weekly which furnish Japanese Schoolboy to public not often enough, when is his book coming out? [] That Boy is the dearest & sweetest & frankest & wisest & funniest & delightfulest & lovablest creation that has been added to our literature for a long time.
      Transcription: Benjamin Griffin, Harriet Elinor Smith, editors (2015), “Explanatory Notes”, in Autobiography of Mark Twain (The Mark Twain Papers), volume 3, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 599.
    • 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part I, London: Collins, →ISBN:
      An indulgent playmate, Grannie would lay aside the long scratchy-looking letter she was writing (heavily crossed 'to save notepaper') and enter into the delightful pastime of 'a chicken from Mr Whiteley's'.
    • 2013 December 11, Megan Garber, quoting Marissa Mayer, “Is ‘Delightful’ the New ‘Cool’?”, in The Atlantic[1]:
      That is what I plan to do at Yahoo: give the end user something valuable and delightful that makes them want to come to Yahoo every day.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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