Awesome
adj, noun, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 Clipping of awesomeness (“the quality, state, or essence of being awesome”). abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, slang, uncountable
"pure awesome"
- 2 A person who is awesome. countable, informal
"When an awesome is dreadful and making even the living of a common person miserable then someone from the community must stand up to resist the dreadful and check the excesses."
- 1 Causing awe or terror; inspiring wonder or excitement.
"The waterfall in the middle of the rainforest was an awesome sight."
- 2 Excellent, exciting, remarkable. Australia, Canada, US, colloquial
"That was awesome!"
- 1 inspiring awe or admiration or wonder wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"We're quite insignificant, but awesome nevertheless."
Etymology
From awe + -some; compare earlier awful and Middle English eiful (“inducing fright or terror, terrible”), from Old English eġeful (“fearful; inspiring awe”). The oldest meaning of awesome is of “something which inspires awe”, but the word is now also a common colloquial expression. It was originally so used in the United States, where it had featured strikingly in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, as used by Japan's Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to describe the "awesome" industrial potential of the United States. Consequently, as the word popularly became an expression for anything superb, in its original meaning it has tended to be replaced by the related word, awe-inspiring.
Related phrases
More for "awesome"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.