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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

fulsome.

Offensive to good taste, tactless, overzealous, excessive.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈfʊlsəm/
  1. Offensive to good taste, tactless, overzealous, excessive.

  2. Excessively flattering (connoting insincerity).

  3. Characterised or marked by fullness; abundant, copious.

    The fulsome thanks of the war-torn nation lifted our weary spirits.
  4. Fully developed; mature.

    Her fulsome timbre resonated throughout the hall.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English fulsom, equivalent to full + -some. The meaning has evolved from an original positive connotation "abundant" to a neutral "plump" to a negative "overfed". In modern usage, it can take on any of these inflections. See usage note. The negative sense "offensive, gross; disgusting, sickening" developed secondarily after the 13th century and was influenced by Middle English foul (“foul”). In the 18th century, the word was sometimes even spelled foulsome.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.