many-splendored

English

This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.
Particularly: “Splendored must be cognate with splendor and probably with splendid, but the history of the word is unclear.”

Alternative forms

many-splendoured (British, Commonwealth, Ireland)

Adjective

many-splendored (not comparable)

with many splendid parts
love is a many-splendored thing
- c. 1907, Francis Thompson, "In No Strange Land", Selected Poems of Francis Thompson, London: Methuen & Co. (1908), p. 131
  'Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces, / That miss the many-splendoured thing.
- 1938, William Marris, "To Aphrodîtê", The Oxford Book of Greek Verse in Translation, Oxford UP (1938), p. 205
  Immortal on thy many-splendoured throne…
- 1952, Han Suyin, A Many-Splendoured Thing, London: Jonathan Cape, published 1952:
  A Many-Splendoured Thing (Title)
- 2009, Joshua D. Angrist, Jörg-Steffen Pischke, Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion, Princeton UP, published 2009, page 122:
  2SLS is a many-splendored thing.