marvel
Americannoun
-
marvels
plural
-
something that causes wonder, admiration, or astonishment; a wonderful thing; a wonder or prodigy.
The new bridge is an engineering marvel.
-
Archaic. the feeling of wonder; astonishment.
verb (used with object)
-
marvels,
present (3rd person singular)
-
marveled,
past participle, past
-
marvelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
marveling,
present participle
-
marvelling
present participle (especially British)
-
to wonder at (usually followed by a clause as object).
I marvel that you were able to succeed against such odds.
-
to wonder or be curious about (usually followed by a clause as object).
A child marvels that the stars can be.
verb (used without object)
-
marvels,
present (3rd person singular)
-
marveled,
past participle, past
-
marvelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
marveling,
present participle
-
marvelling
present participle (especially British)
verb
noun
-
something that causes wonder
-
archaic astonishment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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marvelsimple
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marvelssimple
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have marveledperfect
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have marvelledperfect
-
has marveledperfect
-
has marvelledperfect
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am marvelingprogressive
-
am marvellingprogressive
-
are marvelingprogressive
-
are marvellingprogressive
-
is marvelingprogressive
-
is marvellingprogressive
-
have been marvelingperfect progressive
-
have been marvellingperfect progressive
-
has been marvelingperfect progressive
-
has been marvellingperfect progressive
Past
-
marveledsimple
-
marvelledsimple
-
had marveledperfect
-
had marvelledperfect
-
was marvelingprogressive
-
was marvellingprogressive
-
were marvelingprogressive
-
were marvellingprogressive
-
had been marvelingperfect progressive
-
had been marvellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of marvel
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English mervel, from Old French merveil(l)e, from Late Latin mīrābilia “marvels,” noun use of neuter plural of Latin mīrābilis “marvelous”; see admirable
Explanation
The Latin source of the word marvel is mirari, "to wonder at," and that's exactly what marvel means when it's a verb. You may marvel at the depth of the Grand Canyon or at the size of a piece of cake. When it entered the English language in 1300, marvel meant "miracle" –- that is, a supernatural act of divine agency (miracle actually comes from the same Latin word as marvel). By 1386, Geoffrey Chaucer was able to use the Middle English meruailles to describe more mundane astonishment. Chaucer also used marvel –- maruaylen, actually –- as a verb. In contemporary usage, the close synonym wonder is used much more often –- unless you happen to be a fan of the comic book universe created by Stan Lee. As a noun, anything that provokes wonder is a marvel.
Vocabulary lists containing marvel
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"The Crucible" -- Vocabulary from all 4 Acts
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"The Crucible" -- Vocabulary from Act 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Gareth Bale, the Welsh marvel, who has more Champions League winner's medals than the rest of this list combined.
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
When I was young, I used to marvel at countries whose debt-to-GDP ratios exceeded 120%.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 26, 2026
With AI images bleeding into the real world at a pace none of us can keep up with, there’s human marvel to behold in Anderson’s madness.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
A direct parody of 1974’s “Chinatown,” it’s a technical marvel, especially for its time, one that fully commits to the zaniness of its hand-drawn protagonist.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
Minerva did her best and the result was a marvel, but Arachne’s work, finished at the same moment, was in no way inferior.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
After the delays and cost increases, these projects have not exactly delivered reliable marvels.
From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2026
One of the marvels of this novel is how effortlessly such sentences land, despite being honed to perfection.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
An African or Caribbean man of perhaps 30 marvels at his room service.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
Emparanza marvels at the speed of such AI-driven fermentation design.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
She knew the basics about the five Paragons of Marvelling—Papa and the griots had helped her with those—but she was still learning about all the different kinds of marvels.
From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton
In 1933, Fortune magazine marveled that Ford was “as much interested in the soya bean as he is in the V-8” engine.
From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2026
And this week, as we marveled at AI’s ability to do math, we also wondered if AI is going to destroy humanity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026
I marveled at Bunbury’s humility, but agreed with him that the mystery was far from solved.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
They lamented the lack of public transportation options, then marveled at Waymo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
Used to the bitter winters at Riverbank, they marveled that there was “no ice whatsoever, and no bad wind, and very little snow.”
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
"Throughout the show," marvelled Nick Levine, external, "she skips across the stage in skyscraper heels that most drag performers would baulk at."
From BBC ● Sep. 1, 2026
And in May 2025 Trump sounded more than a little envious of his Arab hosts as he praised the marble of Qatar's royal palace as "perfecto" and marvelled at Saudi Arabia's architecture.
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
"I can make out all the letters of the alphabet, even the smallest ones," he marvelled, pointing to his phone screen.
From Barron's ● May 27, 2026
Maher, a crochety liberal-leaning comic who has grown more crochety and less liberal as societal norms have passed him by, marvelled at the fact that he could make the commander-in-chief laugh.
From Salon ● Apr. 22, 2025
Pippin marvelled at the amount that the Lord seemed to know about a people that lived far away, though it must, he thought, be many years since Denethor himself had ridden abroad.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
“It’s an unusual case,” Gadeberg said, marveling at the allegations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
We would be sipping ice-cold spritzes at cafés overlooking the Mediterranean, frolicking down cobblestone streets lined with charming boutiques, and marveling at the frescoes and marble sculptures adorning grand cathedrals.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026
Beyond marveling over these kingdoms, we can learn a lot more from them than we might expect.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
She and Justin held their daughter for a few precious moments as her heartbeat stilled, marveling at her perfect tiny fingers and toes and whispering private words of love.
From Salon ● May 27, 2026
“I’m beyond convinced,” Mother said, marveling at it.
From "City Spies" by James Ponti
Passengers tend to spend the first few minutes of the ride "marvelling, videoing the steering wheel moving on its own, taking selfies", Fischer said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
Australian tourist Olivia Martell-Groves went all in for the seasonal experience, and donned a flower-printed kimono while marvelling at the flowers.
From Barron's ● Mar. 30, 2026
His own style, which is to say his mind, was compulsively metaphorical, gorgeously maximal, enough so to make him worry about “an implicit marvelling at myself as expressor.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
The event's founder, Sir Brendan Foster, said he had "spent ages marvelling" at the 2025 designs and "never spotted the mistake", even when they were displayed in the window of city centre department store Fenwick.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2025
And yet Odysseus gazed out marvelling at the ships and harbors, public squares, and ramparts towering up with pointed palisades along the top.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
