Award-worthy

Good enough to deserve formal recognition with an award.

Reach for it when praising exceptional quality before or without claiming an actual win

Her award-worthy restoration preserved every delicate painted detail.

• everyday

  excellent

  high quality is enough without invoking a prize

  not when Excellence does not compare the work with award criteria or competitors.

• warm

  remarkable

  the achievement deserves attention and comment

  not when Remarkable is broad and may praise novelty more than finished quality.

• professional

  outstanding

  the work clearly rises above its peers

  not when Outstanding can be based on judgment without any formal award standard.

• formal

  distinguished

  refinement and merit suit dignified praise

  not when Distinguished usually describes a record or style, not one prospective entry.

• formal

  exceptional

  unusual quality is the precise claim

  not when Exceptional can mean merely atypical unless the positive context is clear.

• literary

  prizeworthy

  compact elevated wording for deserving a prize is useful

  not when Prizeworthy is rare enough to sound coined rather than clarifying.

• mediocre
• unremarkable
• substandard

• award-worthy performance

  The understudy gave an award-worthy performance on opening night.

• award-worthy work

  Months of careful research produced award-worthy work.

• truly award-worthy

  The restoration is truly award-worthy because every repair is reversible.

No standalone English Wiktionary entry for award-worthy was available on 2026-07-26; the compound sense is grounded in worthy.

Award-worthy is not a headword in the dictionaries below. The sense was checked against their entries for worthy, and the definition and example here are written for Award-worthy itself.

• wiktionary, the entry for worthy, English adjective sense of worthy: deserving the specified recognition, applied to an award ↗opens in a new tab · retrieved 2026-07-26

The definition and the example on this page are written here. The dictionaries above ground which meaning is being described, not the wording.