Library / English Dictionary

ADMIRE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Feel admiration for

Synonyms:

admire; look up to

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "admire" is one way to...):

esteem; prise; prize; respect; value (regard highly; think much of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "admire"):

envy (feel envious towards; admire enviously)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Antonym:

look down on (regard with contempt)

Derivation:

admiration (a feeling of delighted approval and liking)

admirer (someone who admires a young woman)

admirer (a person who admires; someone who esteems or respects or approves)

admirer (a person who backs a politician or a team etc.)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Look at with admiration

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Hypernyms (to "admire" is one way to...):

look (perceive with attention; direct one's gaze towards)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

Sam cannot admire Sue

Derivation:

admirer (someone who admires a young woman)

admirer (a person who admires; someone who esteems or respects or approves)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Music seems scarcely to attract him, and though he admires Elinor's drawings very much, it is not the admiration of a person who can understand their worth.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

You will get an indication of just how much VIPs admire your performance within that time period.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

I admired the strength, comeliness, and speed of the inhabitants; and such a constellation of virtues, in such amiable persons, produced in me the highest veneration.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I have always admired her complexion, replied Emma, archly; but do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so pale?

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

“Are you a fellow of that sort?” said he, and could not help admiring his own bravery.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I had, as you remember, had much to do with Harrison, the prize-fighter, and I had often had occasion to admire his simple and honest nature.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She is a widow, and much older than Manoir; but she is very much admired, and a favourite with everybody.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They went wholly by holding the irons close to their cheeks, gauging the heat by some secret mental process that Martin admired but could not understand.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

We were sitting out upon the lawn on garden chairs, the three of us, basking in the sun and admiring the view across the Broads, when a maid came out to say that there was a man at the door who wanted to see Mr. Trevor.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life, and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a true sea-dog and a real old salt and such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)