Prestigious means widely respected and admired. A prestigious award, a prestigious address, prestigious universities.
The respect is other people's, which is the point — a prestigious prize is one whose value comes from what everybody thinks of it. Curiously the Latin behind it means full of tricks, since prestige first meant an illusion or a conjuring trick.
1adjectiveprestigiousWidely respected and admired.
“She won a place at a prestigious university that is famous for its science research.”
prestigious is a quality.
Latin praestigiosus means full of tricks, from praestigiae, a juggler's tricks. Prestige first meant an illusion.
Latin
praestigiosus — full of tricks
English, today
prestigious
Built from
Attested since the 1540s; Latin praestigiosus (“full of tricks”), praestigiae (“juggler's tricks”), possibly an alteration of praestringō (“to blindfold, to dazzle”), from prae- (“before”) with stringō (“to bind or tie”); equivalent to prestige + -ious. Unstressed is retained by analogy with prestige.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA