Primary
''magnanimous'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔
magnanimous - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Adjective
magnanimous (comparative more magnanimous, superlative most magnanimous)
- Noble and generous in spirit.
- ✤ Synonyms: big-hearted, generous, great-hearted, large-hearted, unselfish
- ✤ She is a theame of honour and renowne,/A ſpurre to valiant and magnanimous deeds,/Whoſe preſent courage may beate downe our foes,/And fame in time to come canonize us, […]1
- ✤ First, our friendship began at that early time when alone it is unalloyed and sincere; secondly”—and here, in spite of her vivacity, Marie’s voice trembled—“you are associated with the only being in the world I ever really loved; and thirdly, I have behaved exceedingly ill to you, and, consequently, feel it quite magnanimous not to hate you, which is the established rule on such occasions.2
- ✤ *doolittle [*sad but magnanimous ] They played you off very cunning, Eliza, them two sportsmen.3
- ✤ I felt vaguely he was a sneak, and remained quite unmollified by advances on his side, which, in a boy’s barbarous fashion, unless it suited me to be magnanimous, I haughtily ignored.4
Etymology
From Latin magnanimus, from magnus (“great”) + animus (“soul, mind”). Displaced native Old English miċelmōd (literally “big-minded”).
Pronunciation
Printed 2026-06-28.
(echo:: @ ⌗)
Link to original Footnotes
c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. […] (First Quarto), London: […] G[eorge] Eld for R[ichard] Bonian and H[enry] Walley, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]: ↩
1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 206: ↩
1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act V, page 183: ↩
1923, Walter de la Mare, Seaton’s Aunt: ↩
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