Other forms: wonders, wondered, wondering
To wonder is to ask yourself a question you do not have the answer to. I wonder where they got to. I wondered whether to say anything. The wondering happens inside; nobody has to hear it.
It also has an older and quite different meaning: to feel amazement at something. That sense survives mostly in the noun — the wonders of the world, a look of wonder on a child's face — and in no wonder, which is one of the commonest phrases in the language. Be careful with the polite question form: I wonder if you could help me is a request, not a musing, and answering it as though it were a genuine question is a small comedy learners perform once and then never again.
1verbwonderTo ask yourself something, without expecting an answer straight away.
“I wonder what happened to that photograph.”
2verbmarvelTo feel surprise and admiration at something.
“You cannot help wondering at the size of it.”
synonyms: marvel
3nounfeelingA feeling of surprise and admiration.
“The children watched in wonder.”
4nounamazingSomething amazing.
“The garden is one of the wonders of the county.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
wonder is a state of mind.
Old English wundor meant a marvel or a miracle — the thing that astonishes, not the act of asking. Modern English kept that in the noun and let the verb drift towards curiosity, which is the quieter half of the same reaction: you wonder at a thing, and then you wonder about it.
Proto-Indo-European
*wenh₁-
Proto-Germanic
*wundrą
Proto-West Germanic
*wundr
Old English
wundor — wonder, miracle, marvel
Middle English
wonder
English, today
wonder
From Middle English wonder, wunder, from Old English wundor (“wonder, miracle, marvel”), from Proto-West Germanic wundr, from Proto-Germanic wundrą. Cognate with Scots wunner (“wonder”), West Frisian wonder, wûnder (“wonder, miracle”), Dutch wonder (“miracle, wonder”), Low German wunner, wunder (“wonder”), German Wunder (“miracle, wonder”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish under (“wonder, miracle”), Faroese and Icelandic undur (“wonder”). The verb is from Middle English wondren, from Old English wundrian, which is from Proto-Germanic wundrōną. Cognate with stq wunnerje, West Frisian wûnderje, Dutch wonderen, German Low German wunnern, German wundern, Swedish undra, Icelandic undra.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA