famous
/ˈfeɪməs
/- Pitcairners are famous for the culture of silence that pervades their small society.
- The Old Inn at Gairloch is famous for its seafood and game but it is worth holding back to enjoy pudding.
- The city is a World Heritage Site and is famous for its classical music, beer and marzipan.
Synonyms
- As he was to do three years later, White tackled England to a standstill to gain a famous victory.
- In the end the Bay just didn't have enough juice in the tank to claim a famous victory.
- Kuerten reaches match point and records a famous victory in just over two hours.
Phrases
famous for being famous
famous for fifteen minutes
famous last words
Derivatives
famousness
/ noun ...- They may be right to feel hunted by the press, but feeling hunted by the press is an aspect of self-hunting too: their famousness is an occasion for grief, and their grief is a constituent part of their fame.
- I'm talking former Cabinet ministers or old British television personality level of famousness.
- But John Safran is funnier and Jewish yet enjoys nowhere near the same hemisphere of famousness.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French fameus, from Latin famosus 'famed', from fama (see fame).
fame from Middle English:
In early use fame could mean not only ‘celebrity’ but ‘reputation’, a sense that survives in the old term for a brothel, a house of ill fame. The word comes from Latin fama ‘report, fame’. The desire to win fame has often been seen as a positive force to stir somebody up to action: in the 17th century John Milton wrote ‘Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise…To scorn delights, and live laborious days.’ The writer Howard Spring borrowed Fame is the Spur as the title of a novel that was made into a film in 1947. Famous (Late Middle English) is from the same root. To be famous for fifteen minutes comes from the prediction by the American artist Andy Warhol in 1968 that ‘In the future everybody will be world-famous for fifteen minutes.’ A few years later famous for being famous is recorded to describe someone whose only real distinction is their celebrity status.