Bible dictionaries
Admiration
What Bible dictionaries say about “Admiration”, one article after the other.
Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
Admiration - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)
ADMIRA'TION, n. Wonder mingled with pleasing emotions, as approbation, esteem, love or veneration; a compound emotion excited by something novel, rare, great, or excellent; applied to persons and their works. It often includes a slight degree of surprise. Thus, we view the solar system with admiration.
Very near to admiration is the wish to admire.
It has been sometimes used in an ill sense, denoting wonder with disapprobation.
Your boldness I with admiration see.
When I saw her I wondered with great admiration. Luke 18.
Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
The article in Easton + Webster 1828International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)
ad-mi-ra'-shun (thauma, "a marvel" or "wonder"; thaumazo, "to wonder"): A term thrice used in the King James Version in the New Testament, to express a wonder that includes approval, high esteem; replaced in the Revised Version (British and American) by three renderings better suited to convey the various kinds of surprise, wonder, admiration, expressed, by this fertile word: namely, in 2Th 1:10, "to be admired," reads in the Revised Version (British and American) "to be marveled at"; in Jude 1:16 "having men's persons in admiration" is rendered "showing respect of persons"; in Re 17:6 "wondered with great admiration" is replaced by "with a great wonder." The Greek original is used frequently in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, to express marvel and wonder at the supernatural works of Jesus.
Dwight M. Pratt
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2
The article in ISBE 1915