Reverential admiration and curiosity at something beautiful, marvelous, or inexplicable.
Reverential admiration and curiosity at something beautiful, marvelous, or inexplicable — the most positive, contemplative member of the family.
Least startle-driven of the family: where surprise, astonishment, and amazement react to the unexpected, wonder is the admiring, reverent emotion excited by the beautiful or mysterious — and it uniquely carries a curiosity strand (“I wonder if…”), a forward-looking, questioning quality. Calmer and more sustained than the stunned amazement; closely akin to awe, but more open and delighted where awe adds solemnity and a note of fear.
Reverential admiration and curiosity at something beautiful, marvelous, or inexplicable.
The emotion sense dates to the late 13c.
The astonishing thing itself — a marvel or prodigy (“a wonder of the world,” “nine-days' wonder”).
The oldest sense (Old English wundor) named the marvelous object before the feeling.
To feel curiosity or doubt — “I wonder why.”
This inquisitive sense is attested from late Old English and gives wonder its forward-looking quality.
Native Germanic, from Old English wundor “marvelous thing, object of astonishment,” from Proto-Germanic wundran — of unknown ultimate origin. (Contrast the French/Latin-derived surprise, astonish, and amaze.)
Broadened from naming the marvelous object (Old English) to the admiring/curious feeling (late 13c.). The inquisitive “I wonder” sense is attested from late Old English. The most reverence- and curiosity-laden term of the family. No reliable recent-generation shift.