successful

[suhk-ses-fuhl]

adjective

1. achieving or having achieved success.

2. having attained wealth, position, honors, or the like.

3. resulting in or attended with success.

successful

/ səkˈsɛsfʊl /

adjective

1. having succeeded in one's endeavours

2. marked by a favourable outcome

3. having obtained fame, wealth, etc

Other Word Forms

• successfully adverb
• successfulness noun
• half-successful adjective
• half-successfully adverb
• half-successfulness noun
• nonsuccessful adjective
• nonsuccessfully adverb
• presuccessful adjective
• presuccessfully adverb
• quasi-successful adjective
• quasi-successfully adverb
• semisuccessful adjective
• semisuccessfully adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of successful¹

First recorded in 1580–90; success + -ful

Example Sentences

Here’s a story from 2022 showing Port’s loyalty to San Juan Hills and wanting to prove you can be successful anywhere.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Sales can make the difference between a successful year or a failed one.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Hatchlings come equipped with a magnetic compass that helps them maintain direction, and a magnetic map that provides location information essential for successful navigation.

Read more on Science Daily

All good teams will undoubtedly have a solid base like that, which enables them to collect clean sheets and produces a platform to be successful.

Read more on BBC

Silicon Valley’s startup model encourages “a fake it until you make it” strategy: Pretend to be successful to attract the coders, venture capitalists and customers that bring actual success.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• fortunate 
• fruitful 
• happy 
• lucky 
• lucrative 
• outstanding 
• prosperous 
• rewarding 
• strong 
• wealthy 

When To Use

Spelling tips for successful

The word successful is hard to spell because it can be hard to know which letters are doubled. Both the c and the middle s are doubled, but the f and l are not. How to spell successful: To be a success, you need to see (two Cs) Some Smarts (two Ss). This reminds you that success is spelled with a double C in the middle and a double S at the end. To spell successful, you add the base word (success) to the suffix -ful.