Magnificent means grand and beautiful in a way that takes your breath away. A magnificent building, a magnificent view, absolutely magnificent.
It suits things of real scale and quality — cathedrals, mountains, performances — and sounds overblown applied to small ones. It is also used as warm praise for an effort: a magnificent achievement, magnificent courage. Note magnificence, the noun; the historical epithet, as in Suleiman the Magnificent; and that magnificent belongs to the family of magni- words about greatness: magnitude, magnify, magnate.
1adjectivemagnificentGrand and beautiful in a breathtaking way.
“The view from the top is magnificent for about ten minutes a year.”
magnificent is a quality of grandeur.
Also accepted in games: splendid
Latin magnificus is magnus, great, plus facere, to make — great-making. The Romans used it of people who spent grandly on public works, so the word began by describing generosity of scale rather than beauty.
Latin
magnificentior
Middle French
magnificent
Middle English
magnificent
English, today
magnificent
Built from
From Middle English magnificent, from Middle French magnificent, from Latin magnificentior, comparative of magnificus (“great in deeds or sentiment, noble, splendid, etc.”), from magnus (“great”) + -ficēns, a form of -ficiēns, the regular form, in compounds, of faciēns, a participle of faciō (“to do”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA