Glorious

GLORIOUS glo'-ri-us:

The adjective "glorious" is used in the majority of cases as the translation of one of the nouns which are fully discussed in the article GLORY, and the general meaning is the same, for the glorious objects or persons have the quality which is described by the word "glory," that is, they are honorable, dignified, powerful, distinguished, splendid, beautiful or radiant. It is worthy of note that in many passages in the New Testament where the King James Version has "glorious," the Revised Version (British and American) has the noun "glory." So among others in Romans 8:21, the King James Version has "glorious liberty," the Revised Version (British and American) "liberty of the glory of the sons of God." The obsolete use of the word glorious in the sense of "boastful," "vain-glorious," "eager for glory," as it is used in Wycliffe, Tyndale and Bacon, and once or twice in Shakespeare, as in Cymbeline, I, 7, in the first speech of Imogen, "Most miserable is the desire that's glorious," and in Gower's Prologue to Pericles, 1,9, "The purchase of it is to make men glorious" occurs at least once in the apocryphal books, Additions to Esther 16:4 the King James Version, "but also lifted up with the glorious words of lewd persons."

Walter R. Betteridge

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Bibliography Information

Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Entry for 'GLORIOUS'".  "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia".  1915.