delightful, a.
(dɪˈlaɪtfʊl)
Also 6 delyte-, delite-.
[f. delight (delite) n. + -ful.]
1. Affording delight; delighting; highly pleasing, charming.
| 1530 Palsgr. 309/2 Delytefull, that moche delyteth, deliteux. 1553 T. Wilson Rhet. (1580) 3 marg., Oratours muste use delitefull wordes and saiges. 1590 Spenser F.Q. i. iv. 4 Goodly galleries..Full of faire windowes and delightful bowres. 1659 D. Pell Impr. Sea To Rdr. A vij, What delightfuller thing canst thou read than a Theam or Subject of the Sea. 1667 Milton P.L. i. 467 Rimmon, whose delightful Seat Was fair Damascus. 1779 Cowper Lett. 31 Oct., Was there ever anything so delightful as the music of the Paradise Lost? 1848 Dickens Dombey xxxv, That delightfullest of cities, Paris. 1870 Lowell Study Wind. (1871) 1 One of the most delightful books in my father's library. |
† 2. Full of or experiencing delight; delighting in, delighted with. Obs.
| a 1569 [see delightfully 2]. 1576 Fleming Panopl. Epist. 392 Shake off that delightfull desire whiche you have to be conversaunt in the Citie. 1600 C. Sutton Learn to Die (1634) 16 Too chilling a doctrine for our delightful dispositions. 1602 Daniel Hymen's Tri. v. i, We are glad to see you thus Delightful. 1687 A. Lovell Bergerac's Com. Hist. 24 The Nymph Eccho is so delightful with their Airs. |