- splendid
- splendid, *resplendent, gorgeous, glorious, sublime, superb can mean having or displaying outstanding or transcendingly impressive qualities. Although, like most adjectives implying transcendence, they are often used interchangeably in hyperbole or in general expressions of great admiration or satisfaction, they are capable of being used more precisely in ways that convey quite distinctive images and impressions.Splendid implies an outshining of the usual or customary (as in brilliancy, luster, grandeur, or magnificence) or an impressing of the observer (as by surpassing brilliancy, luster, or grandeur){
a fine yea even a splendid room, of great height, and carved grandeur— Galsworthy
}{the splendid efflorescence of genius in Russia during ... the last century— Ellis
}{blocks set there like markers of a splendid city yet unbuilt which would rise grandly from the hills— Wolfe
}{there was a majestic quality about this woman, something splendid, almost stately— Dahl
}Resplendent implies a glowing or blazing splendor{girls, resplendent in fine red or green cloth coats with big fur collars framing the flashing vivacity of their faces— Ferber
}{Juliet died, but not before she had shown how great and resplendent a thing love could be— Krutch
}Gorgeous is likely to apply to the sumptuously splendid in color or display of colors{the July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to scarlet. It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season, in which the heath was gorgeous— Hardy
}The term sometimes stresses showiness or elaborateness rather than splendor of coloring{a gorgeous feast
}{quite gorgeous archway with gates at the head of the staircase, covered and festooned with pink roses— Wouk
}Glorious implies a being radiant with light or beauty or a standing out as eminently worthy of admiration, renown, or distinction{now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York— Shak.
}{he soon saw within ken a glorious Angel stand ... his back was turned, but not his brightness hid— Milton
}{as often happens after a gray daybreak the sun had risen in a warm and glorious splendor— Conrad
}{this glorious vision of manly strength and beauty— Shaw
}Sublime applies distinctively to what is so elevated or exalted that the mind in contemplating or picturing it cannot reach full comprehension of it and must, in part at least, feel or imagine the vastness of its extent, power, beauty, or nobility{the main force of Buddhist art was spent in the creation of sublime figures, the images of those enlightened ones who in the clear beam of their purified vision beheld and understood the sorrows, the struggles, the vain angers and hatreds of imperfect mortality— Binyon
}{the thunderstorm when it is felt to be sublime has lost in part at least the terrors it possesses as a natural event— Alexander
}{he ran the gamut of denunciation, rising to heights of wrath that were sublime and almost Godlike— London
}Superb describes what exceeds the merely grand, magnificent, sumptuous, or splendid and reaches the highest conceivable point of competence, brilliance, grandeur, magnificence, or splendor{a superb wine
}{a superb performance
}{the author's style is brilliant, his command of words and images superb— Harrison Smith
}{as a boat builder he was superb . . . The boat was sculptured rather than built— Steinbeck
}{superb figures, breathing health and strength— Binyon
}{he had the superb vitality of early youth— Cather
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
