the.com/awesome
A word that once described God and now describes nachos.
means Originally inspiring reverent dread; now a generic stamp of approval for anything mildly good.
from From awe (Old English ege, meaning terror or dread) plus -some — literally full of awe. For centuries it meant fearsome and overwhelming, the stuff of thunderstorms and deities, before the 20th century slang machine flattened it into a verbal thumbs-up.
Semantic inflationMeaning weakened as overuse cheapened the awe.
Sibling wordAwful was once a compliment too.
American boomSlang sense exploded among 1980s teenagers.