Exceptionally impressive or enjoyable in a way that creates excitement.
Reach for it when giving emphatic informal praise to a performance, result, or experience
The understudy delivered a sensational performance on opening night.
| playful |
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|---|---|
| everyday | |
| warm | |
| professional |
playful
Fits when energetic everyday enthusiasm fits
Careful Fantastic is broad and can become empty intensification.
playful
Fits when extraordinary achievement merits strong amazement
Careful Phenomenal is inflated unless the result is genuinely unusual.
everyday
Fits when visual scale or dramatic display drives the praise
Careful Spectacular may reward show over underlying quality.
warm
Fits when beauty or impact produces an immediate reaction
Careful Stunning centers surprise and may apply to disturbing news.
warm
Fits when the experience creates sustained excitement
Careful A precise technical result can be sensational without feeling thrilling.
professional
Fits when high quality should sound credible and measured
Careful First-rate lacks the exuberance that makes sensational apt.
professional
Fits when excellence clearly exceeds a known standard
Careful Outstanding measures quality with cooler language and no promise of excitement.
sensational performance
Her sensational performance brought the audience to its feet.
sensational success
The repair program became a sensational success after the trial year.
look sensational
The restored velvet curtains look sensational beneath the new lights.
Keep in mind
Sensational also describes material designed to shock rather than inform. The positive sense needs an unmistakably praising context.
Definitions and examples are written for this site. How words are chosen Recording: Vealhurl, Southern England accent, from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 Updated
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