Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Highly pleasing or agreeable to the senses, especially of taste or smell.
- adj. Very pleasant; delightful: a delicious revenge.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Pleasing in the highest degree; most sweet or grateful to the senses; affording exquisite pleasure: as, a delicious viand; a delicious odor; delicious fruit or wine.
- Most pleasing to the mind; yielding exquisite delight; delightful.
- Delicate; luxurious; dainty; addicted to or seeking pleasure.
- Synonyms Delicious, Delightful, luscious, savory. Delicious is highly agreeable to some sense, generally that of taste, sometimes that of smell or of hearing. Delightful is highly agreeable to the mind; it is always supersensuous, except perhaps as sight or hearing is sometimes the immediate means to high mental pleasure. Delicious food, odors, music; delightful thoughts, hopes, anticipations, news.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Affording exquisite pleasure; delightful; most sweet or grateful to the senses, especially to the taste; charming.
- adj. Addicted to pleasure; seeking enjoyment; luxurious; effeminate.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. extremely pleasing to the sense of taste
- n. variety of sweet eating apples
- adj. greatly pleasing or entertaining
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Anglo-Norman, from Late Latin dēliciōsus, pleasing, from Latin dēlicia, pleasure : dē-, intensive pref.; see de- + lacere, to entice.
Examples
“Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal 2010 Saracco 2010 Saracco Moscato d'Asti, $16 The word "great" is rarely, if ever, applied to Moscato d'Asti, but the word "delicious" would not be amiss in describing this light, bright, slightly fizzy white with notes of pear and white flower from one of the best Moscato producers in Piedmont.”
The Wall Street Journal: Enjoying Good Wines With a Violin Great
“In this recipe, the chef elevates what he calls "delicious peasant food" with two Moroccan-inflected sauces: a lime-coriander yogurt and a tapenade made with dates and Lucques olives.”
The Wall Street Journal: Sardines with Olive-Date Tapenade and Yogurt
“Goldberg did serve as an informal adviser to Tripp during the months in which she was taping conversations with Lewinsky, and Goldberg relished hearing what she called the delicious "dish" about the president.”
“About “gravlax” which I called a delicious fermented salmon dish, something some of you Americans thought was funny:”
“He likes how she says the word "delicious," so she repeats it three times: "Delicious, delicious, delicious.”
“He resides near Jocotepec, Jalisco, in "delicious" remote mountainside privacy.”
“Sometimes I pick wines because they are just plain delicious, but it goes beyond that.”
“EW, your clips are delicious from a menu of mutton.”
“I am very much of the belief that a walk or a subway ride for something really delicious is alwasy worth it.”
“Or at least Long Island: the idea of Pamela Geller getting evicted and replaced by a Palestinian family has a certain delicious symmetry to it. feckless Says:”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘delicious’.
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Describing the Taste of Foods
yummy, zesty, piquant, pungent, sharp, spicy, poignant, delicious, ambrosial, appetizing, delectable, heavenly and 194 more...
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You are so GOOD LOOKING!
Words about looking good
a dish, dishy, snazzy, styling, looker, handsome, beautiful, delicious, dessert, yummy, tantalizing, hormone hunk and 51 more...
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Words to Describe The Taste of Food
This list seeks to address a pet annoyance of mine. It occurs when chefs, food critics and travel writers, usually on television, taste something that looks either delicious or unusual and then in...
unctuous, sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami, piquant, savory, tangy, luscious, delectable, brackish and 66 more...
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'icious!
words common and fictitious ending in -icious and -itious
delicious, discolicious, droolicious, auspicious, cocoalicious, riddleicious, fictitious, vicious, tralatitious, superstitious, officious, receptitious and 23 more...
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yummy
delectable words
literallydelectable, scrumptious, ambrosial, mouthwatering, piquant, juicy, luscious, heavenly, sapid, toothsome, succulent, savory and 10 more...
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Adjectives for XKCD936-compliant passphrases
A list of 2048 common English adjectives that could be used to create plausible, memorable random phrases.
I'm going to use this list in a password generator, inspired by big, small, happy, sad, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, near, far and 19 more... -
lunathemoon's list
This is for those words that sound slang, but are actually formal terms.
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yaleboy716's list
perspicacious, exonerate, capricious, dazzle, splendid, splendor, languorous, delicious, dapper, sartorial
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kingangel's list
Louises I lifted my face to the rain. The night air was delicious with the smell of damp woodland, streaked with the odors of wet tarmac, cordite, diesel and the seductive whiff of the motorcycle leathers. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.
Mar 27, 2012
arcadia YES! Ideas CAN be delicious. See my list "Picture THIS on your marquee" for examples. Dec 19, 2007
lampbane Penny Arcade (7/12/06):
"What does it mean to be delicious? Can something untasteable posess some flavor that is metatastual? Could, then, an idea be delicious?" Dec 6, 2007