frabjous

English

Etymology

Originally a nonce word in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky; probably a blend of fair, fabulous, and joyous.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɹæbd͡ʒəs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Adjective

frabjous (comparative more frabjous, superlative most frabjous)

1. Fabulous, joyous; great, wonderful.
   • 1871, Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky:

     “ […] / O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” / He chortled in his joy.

   • 1960 November 15, Walt Kelly, Pogo, comic strip, →ISBN, page 198:

     [Owl, deluded his candidate was elected:] My dark horse!... Oh, frabjous day!

   • 2012 March 15, “To Be a Fully Developed Person (and Leader), You Need to Dream”, in Minneapolis Star Tribune:

     "Tomorrow there'll be so much to do," as the Dixie Chicks remind us, "so tonight I'll drift in a dream with you." I want her life to be frabjous, not weighed down with mimsy.

   • 2016 January 23, Kris Kosaka, “Barefoot Gen”, in The Japan Times:

     Beginning in the final months leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and ending in 1953, “Barefoot Gen” takes us inside war from the civilians’ view with none of the propaganda and all of the flawed and frabjous potential of humanity.

   • 2017 January 31, Jim Myers, “Nashvill'es Best Candies for Valentine's Day”, in Tennesseean:

     It's the sugar rush that quickens the pulse. It's the headlong chocolate-dopamine surge that excites. It's the frabjous joy of tearing into a well-wrapped bar. It's love, love, love.

   • 2019 April 12, Suzanne Moore, “Wikileaks was the future once. Then it became Julian Assange”, in NewStatesman:

     O frabjous day! We are all bored out of our minds with Brexit when a demented looking gnome is pulled out of the Ecuadorian embassy by the secret police of the deep state. Or “the met” as normal people call them.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:wonderful

Translations

fabulous, joyous

• French: frabieux
• Polish: elegancki (pl) m
• Vietnamese: tuyệt vui
• Welsh: ffrabiach m