Glorious means magnificent enough to be remembered with pride. A glorious victory, a glorious day, glorious weather.
It is warm and slightly grand, and it works for weather, food, scenery and achievements. Glorious weather is one of the commonest uses in British English, where it means simply sunny and is said with disproportionate feeling. Note glory, the noun; the Glorious Revolution of 1688; and glorified, which reverses the sense entirely — a glorified cupboard is a cupboard with pretensions.
1adjectivegloriousMagnificent enough to be remembered with pride.
“It was a glorious season and it has not been repeated.”
synonyms: magnificent, splendid
2adjectivewonderfullyWonderfully fine, of weather or scenery.
“It was a glorious afternoon and everybody left work early.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
glorious is a quality of splendour.
Latin gloriosus comes from gloria, fame or renown. In classical Latin gloriosus often meant boastful, which is why the stock braggart of Roman comedy is the miles gloriosus — the glorious soldier, meaning the one who talks too much.
Latin
glōriōsus
Old French
glorïos
Anglo-Norman
glorius
Middle English
glorious
English, today
glorious
From Middle English glorious, from Anglo-Norman glorius and Old French glorïos, from Latin glōriōsus. Displaced native Middle English wulderful, from Old English wuldorfull (“glorious”), among other terms. Equivalent to glory + ous.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA