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say it: spek-TA-kyuh-lur
spectacular is an adjective and noun meaning "sensational in appearance or thrilling in effect". It carries 4 recorded senses.
sensational in appearance or thrilling in effect
“a dramatic sunset”
“a dramatic pause”
“a spectacular display of northern lights”
“it was a spectacular play”
“his striking good looks always created a sensation”
having a quality that thrusts itself into attention
“an outstanding fact of our time is that nations poisoned by anti semitism proved less fortunate in regard to their own freedom”
“a new theory is the most prominent feature of the book”
“salient traits”
“a spectacular rise in prices”
“a striking thing about Picadilly Circus is the statue of Eros in the center”
“a striking resemblance between parent and child”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for spectacular come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.