awesome

Etymology

From awe + -some; compare Old English eġeful (“fearful; inspiring awe”).

adj

1. (dated) Causing awe or terror; inspiring wonder or excitement.
   The waterfall in the middle of the rainforest was an awesome sight.
   The tsunami was awesome in its destructive power.
   Certainly it is awesome to think of a nation that brings its powers of persuasion against a woman's right to conceive. 1984-02-14, John Corry, “Birth Curb in China”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
2. (colloquial, Canada, US, Australia) Excellent, exciting, remarkable.
   That was awesome!
   Awesome, dude!
   Awesome! Totally awesome! All right, Hamilton! 1982, Cameron Crowe, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, spoken by Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn)

noun

1. (uncountable, slang) Short for awesomeness: the quality, state, or essence of being awesome.
   pure awesome
   made of awesome
   Plus, her patent leather boots were made of awesome. They made her legs look longer and leaner. 2011, Gwen Hayes, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Samhain Publishing, Ltd., published 2011, page 6
   Swayze, of course, is the being of pure awesome who has by now conquered all of Heaven. 2011, Kevin Seccia, Punching Tom Hanks: Dropkicking Gorillas and Pummeling Zombified Ex-Presidents—A Guide to Beating Up Anything, St. Martin's Press, published 2011, page 189
   “Your grandmother,” he mumbles into my hair as we cuddle on the couch, “is made of awesome.” 2013, Carrie Jones, Captivate, Bloomsbury, published 2010, page 150
2. (countable, informal) A person who is awesome.
   When an awesome is dreadful and making even the living of a common person miserable then someone from the community must stand up to resist the dreadful and check the excesses. 2012, Qamrul Khanson, Psychological Healing: An Islamic Thought of Intellectual Fitness, page 123
   Or as I like to think of it, the wusses versus the awesomes. 2019, Yvonne Lindsay, Jessica Lemmon, Katherine Garbera, Harlequin Desire October 2019