素晴らしい

Taken apart

No breakdown is shown for this word: Wiktionary's text for it doesn't give a split that spells the word and joins to its reading, and any other split would be a guess.

Written with 素晴

In a sentence

• まあ、すばらしいわ。

  My, but you're nice.

  Tatoeba #195844, translation #33019

• すばらしい日(ひ)ですね。

  It's a nice day, isn't it?

  Tatoeba #214550, translation #51842

Sentences are from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR), picked by fixed rules from a dated export and shown unchanged. Nobody has reviewed them one by one.

What Wiktionary says

Quoted line by line from Wiktionary's Etymology section for this reading, taken from one dated dump so it can't change underneath us. Nothing below is paraphrased.

• “Originally derived from 窄(すば)る (subaru, “to shrink, to get smaller”, archaic) + しい (-shii, adjectivizing suffix evoking the quality of the suffixed term), from the sense of “that which makes one shrink away”. Compare verbs 窄まる (subomaru), 窄める (subomeru). The kanji spelling is an example of ateji (当(あ)て字(じ)).”
• “The initial sense was strongly negative, and this usage continued until at least the mid-1800s in the Edo period, when the meaning shifted to a strong positive instead. Compare the development of English terrific, of strongly positive meanings, from terrify, of strongly negative meanings.”
• “The modern kanji spelling could be considered an example of ateji (当(あ)て字(じ)).”

Source: Wiktionary: 素晴らしい (dump of 2026-09-02), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Reading, meaning and part of speech from JMdict, and kanji readings from KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG).

What the labels mean

混種語 Hybrid

Words that mix layers, e.g. a native part with a Chinese one.

Derivation

A word built from a stem plus a suffix or prefix.

Meaning shift

The word's meaning moved away from where it started.

Ateji

Kanji chosen for their sound or sense after the word existed.