Other forms: admired, admires, admiring
To admire somebody is to look up to them with respect and warm approval. Admire her courage, I admire him for it, greatly admired.
It combines respect with liking, which is what separates it from merely respecting. It is also used for simply looking at something with pleasure: admire the view, stood admiring the garden. Note admirable, meaning worth admiring, stressed on the first syllable — AD-mirable; admiration, the noun; and admirer, which in older usage means somebody romantically interested, as in a secret admirer.
1verbadmireTo look up to somebody with respect and approval.
“She admired him for saying it out loud.”
synonyms: respect, look up to, esteem
2verbpleasureTo look at something with pleasure.
“They stood admiring the view for a good ten minutes.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
admire is a way of regarding.
Latin admirari is ad-, at, plus mirari, to wonder — the same root as miracle, mirror and marvel. To admire was to wonder at, and the wonder has softened into warm approval without quite disappearing.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)mey-
Latin
admīror
Middle French
admirer
Middle English
admyren
English, today
admire
Built from
From Middle English admyren, borrowed from Middle French admirer, from Latin admīror, from ad + mīror (“wonder at”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA