FELICITOUS

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does felicitous mean? 

• FELICITOUS (adjective)
  The adjective FELICITOUS has 2 senses:

1. exhibiting an agreeably appropriate manner or style

2. marked by good fortune

  Familiarity information: FELICITOUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FELICITOUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Exhibiting an agreeably appropriate manner or style

Context example:

a felicitous speaker

Similar:

congratulatory; gratulatory (expressive of sympathetic pleasure or joy on account of someone's success or good fortune)

happy; well-chosen (well expressed and to the point)

well-turned ((of language) aptly and pleasingly expressed)

well-wishing (extending good wishes for success)

Also:

happy (enjoying or showing or marked by joy or pleasure)

Attribute:

felicitousness; felicity (pleasing and appropriate manner or style (especially manner or style of expression))

Antonym:

infelicitous (not appropriate in application; defective)

Derivation:

felicitousness; felicity (pleasing and appropriate manner or style (especially manner or style of expression))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Marked by good fortune

Synonyms:

felicitous; happy

Context example:

a happy outcome

Similar:

fortunate (having unexpected good fortune)

Derivation:

felicitousness (pleasing and appropriate manner or style (especially manner or style of expression))

felicity (state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy)

 Context examples 

He had remained in Shropshire, lamenting the blindness of his own pride, and the blunders of his own calculations, till at once released from Louisa by the astonishing and felicitous intelligence of her engagement with Benwick.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

"I grant that as authorities to quote they are most excellent—the two foremost literary critics in the United States. Every school teacher in the land looks up to Vanderwater as the Dean of American criticism. Yet I read his stuff, and it seems to me the perfection of the felicitous expression of the inane. Why, he is no more than a ponderous bromide, thanks to Gelett Burgess. And Praps is no better. His 'Hemlock Mosses,' for instance is beautifully written. Not a comma is out of place; and the tone—ah!—is lofty, so lofty. He is the best-paid critic in the United States. Though, Heaven forbid! he's not a critic at all. They do criticism better in England.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)