wunderbar
Americaninterjection
Explanation
It's just wunderbar, or fantastic, that English has so many loanwords from all over the world! They can help us express a lot of different moods — in this case, delight and joy. Wunderbar is a German word. Wunder means "wonder," and the suffix -bar essentially means -able. So something that is wunderbar is capable of causing wonder. The word has slipped into English usage, probably because it sounds so similar to wonderful, which has the same meaning. The word is good for adding a bit of enthusiasm or flair when reacting to good news or describing a great experience: "Our trip to Europe was absolutely wunderbar!"
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.
There were potent emotions outside the grand opening of D.C.’s first Lidl, and they weren’t all about the German grocery chain’s wunderbar selection of brats.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 29, 2022
“It’s wunderbar, because in wartime winner takes it all, in a way. So it is very honorable of the people to give the back now.”
From New York Times ● May 5, 2015
"As young Baggs would put it, Das ist wunderbar," he says.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 23, 2010
And it's the most wunderbar time of the year for soccer fans as the World Cup rolls on in Germany.
From Time Magazine Archive
For it urges the pursuit of the transcendental self through those feelings which another very great idealist, Friedrich Schiller, describes in magnificent metaphor as … “der dunklen Gefühle Gewalt, die im Herzen wunderbar schliefen.”
From Prophets of Dissent : Essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy by Otto Heller
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.
