Word.ws English Dictionary

fullsome

fullsome is the archaic form of fulsome.

Meaning of fulsome

Adjective

fulsome (comparative fulsomer or more fulsome, superlative fulsomest or most fulsome)

  1. Offensive to good taste, tactless, overzealous, excessive.
    • [T]he Weather exceeding hot, I entreated him to let me bathe in a River that was near. He conſented, and I immediately ſtripped myſelf ſtark naked, and went down ſoftly into the ſtream. It happened that a young Female Yahoo ſtanding behind a Bank, ſaw the whole proceeding, and enflamed by Deſire...1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author Relates Several Particulars of the Yahoos. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […]...
  2. Excessively flattering (connoting insincerity).
    • And by hideous contrast, a redundant orator was making a speech to another gathering not thirty steps away, in fulsome laudation of "our glorious British liberties!"1889, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “The Yankee and the King Sold as Slaves”, in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, New York, N.Y.: Charles L. Webster & Company, →OCLC...
    Synonyms:
    effusive, unctuous
  3. Characterised or marked by fullness; abundant, copious.
    • The fulsome thanks of the war-torn nation lifted our weary spirits.
    Synonyms:
    profuse
  4. Fully developed; mature.
    • Her fulsome timbre resonated throughout the hall.

Forms of fullsome

comparativemore fullsome
superlativemost fullsome

Questions about fullsome

What is fullsome the archaic form of?
Fullsome is the archaic form of fulsome.

Words near fullsome in the dictionary

  1. fullset
  2. fullsets
  3. fullsib
  4. fullsibs
  5. fullsize
  6. fullsome
  7. fullstanding
  8. fullstop
  9. fullstops
  10. fullsuit
  11. fullsuited

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fullsome (page history and authors); fulsome (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “fullsome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fullsome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.