Other forms: miracles
A miracle is an event that seems impossible to explain, usually a good one. In religion it is an act of God; in ordinary speech it is anything that ought not to have worked and did.
The everyday use is far commoner and is nearly always mild exaggeration: it is a miracle the car started, a miracle nobody was hurt. Note the useful phrase work miracles, meaning to achieve something remarkable, and miracle cure, which is almost always sceptical. The adjective is miraculous, and the adverb miraculously is a favourite of news reporting: miraculously, all four walked away.
1nounmiracleA wonderful event that cannot be explained.
“It was a miracle that anyone survived.”
2nounreligionIn religion, an act of God that breaks the ordinary rules of nature.
“The chapter describes three miracles.”
3nounremarkableA remarkable achievement.
“Getting them all in one room was a small miracle.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
miracle is an extraordinary event.
Latin miraculum meant an object of wonder, from mirari, to wonder at — the same verb behind mirror, which is a thing you look at in wonder, and admire. The root idea is not the impossible but the astonishing.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)mey-
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)meyh₂- — to smile, to be astonished
Latin
mīrāculum — object of wonder
Old French
miracle
Middle English
miracle
English, today
miracle
Built from
From Middle English miracle, from Old French miracle, from Latin mīrāculum (“object of wonder”), from mīror (“to wonder at”), from mīrus (“wonderful”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)meyh₂- (“to smile, to be astonished”). a doublet of milagro and miraculum. Partially displaced native wonder, from wundor.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA