successful

[ suhk-ses-fuhl ]
See synonyms for: successfulsuccessfullysuccessfulness on Thesaurus.com

adjective
  1. achieving or having achieved success.

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

  1. resulting in or attended with success.

Origin of successful

1
First recorded in 1580–90; success + -ful

Other words from successful

  • suc·cess·ful·ly, adverb
  • suc·cess·ful·ness, noun
  • half-suc·cess·ful, adjective
  • half-suc·cess·ful·ly, adverb
  • half-suc·cess·ful·ness, noun
  • non·suc·cess·ful, adjective
  • non·suc·cess·ful·ly, adverb
  • pre·suc·cess·ful, adjective
  • pre·suc·cess·ful·ly, adverb
  • qua·si-suc·cess·ful, adjective
  • qua·si-suc·cess·ful·ly, adverb
  • sem·i·suc·cess·ful, adjective
  • sem·i·suc·cess·ful·ly, adverb

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use successful in a sentence

  • Well, Miss Tucker, I is had great successfulness with my choclid cake and blue mawnge.

  • On this side, then, certainly the chief side, there could be no question about the successfulness of his life.

    Queed | Henry Sydnor Harrison
  • In less than a year she had married a youth of twenty, who apparently had not in him even the rudiments of worldly successfulness.

  • What relation between these factors and successfulness in later life?

British Dictionary definitions for successful

successful

/ (səkˈsɛsfʊl) /


adjective
  1. having succeeded in one's endeavours

  2. marked by a favourable outcome

  1. having obtained fame, wealth, etc

Derived forms of successful

  • successfully, adverb
  • successfulness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012