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View synonyms for admire

admire

[ ad-mahyuhr ]

verb (used with object)

, ad·mired, ad·mir·ing.
  1. to regard with wonder, pleasure, or approval.

    Synonyms: venerate, revere, esteem

    Antonyms: despise

  2. to regard with wonder or surprise (usually used ironically or sarcastically):

    I admire your audacity.



verb (used without object)

, ad·mired, ad·mir·ing.
  1. to feel or express admiration.
  2. Dialect. to take pleasure; like or desire:

    I would admire to go.

admire

/ ədˈmaɪə /

verb

  1. to regard with esteem, respect, approval, or pleased surprise
  2. archaic.
    to wonder at


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Derived Forms

  • adˈmiring, adjective
  • adˈmiringly, adverb
  • adˈmirer, noun

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Other Words From

  • ad·mir·er noun
  • pre·ad·mire verb (used with object) preadmired preadmiring
  • qua·si-ad·mire verb quasiadmired quasiadmiring
  • un·ad·mired adjective

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Word History and Origins

Origin of admire1

First recorded in 1580–90; from Latin admīrārī, equivalent to ad- ad- + mīrārī (in Medieval Latin mīrāre ) “to wonder at, admire”

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Word History and Origins

Origin of admire1

C16: from Latin admīrāri to wonder at, from ad- to, at + mīrāri to wonder, from mīrus wonderful

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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. be admiring of, Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S. to admire:

    He's admiring of his brother's farm.

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Example Sentences

Something about it I admire and something about it I find unpersuasive.

He also recalls the many visitors who would often go to the island to admire its harvests and wildlife.

You have to admire his convictions; most frustrated auteurs in this town just call such things “an Alan Smithee project.”

He allows the subject to float over to Hitchcock with a calm directness that I admire.

It rests in the message of hope in songs so many young Americans admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen.

Let them that sail on the sea, tell the dangers thereof: and when we hear with our ears, we shall admire.

I'd admire to see him cavorting around on the pinnacles after horse-thieves or whisky-runners or a bunch of bad Indians.

We idlers had permission granted us to land and visit the town, in which, however, we found but little to admire.

The dining room was for the souls of the locals, who could admire the desert more conveniently than find a good meal.

I greatly admire his character, but he positively could not have made his way along the fire trenches I inspected yesterday.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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