wonder

Natalie Merchant's "Wonder" is often mistaken as a song about vanity or arrogance. In actuality, it is a song about a woman with a physical disability and a refreshing attitude: differences in her physical body are not handicaps or deformities, they are wonders, a term that implies magic, awe and beauty. The woman makes her way through life "gifted with love, with patience, and with faith."

The song has become an anthem for many people with disabilities, but Merchant has insisted that, even though her inspiration for the song was a wonderful woman with a physical handicap, the song can be about anyone. For this reason, the video portrays women (of different ages, shapes and sizes) singing the lyrics.

"When the first encounter with some object surprises us... this makes us wonder and be astonished... And since this can happen before we know in the least whether this object is suitable to us or not, it seems to to me that Wonder is the first of all the passions. It has no opposite, because if the object presented has nothing in it that surprises us, we are not in the least moved by it and regard it without passion."

• Rene Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, translated by S. Voss.

In Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, wonder is equated with raised eyebrows, opened lips, and

a hand held up,
palm out,
with fingers open -

reactions that, Darwin argued, increased the animal's chances of survival by making it see and breathe better in a crisis.

Won"der (?), n. [OE. wonder, wunder, AS. wundor; akin to D. wonder, OS. wundar, OHG. wuntar, G. wunder, Icel. undr, Sw. & Dan. under, and perhaps to Gr. to gaze at.]

1.

That emotion which is excited by novelty, or the presentation to the sight or mind of something new, unusual, strange, great, extraordinary, or not well understood; surprise; astonishment; admiration; amazement.

They were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. Acts iii. 10.

Wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance. Johnson.

⇒ Wonder expresses less than astonishment, and much less than amazement. It differs from admiration, as now used, in not being necessarily accompanied with love, esteem, or approbation.

2.

A cause of wonder; that which excites surprise; a strange thing; a prodigy; a miracle.

Milton.

To try things oft, and never to give over, doth wonders. Bacon.

I am as a wonder unto many. Ps. lxxi. 7.

Seven wonders of the world. See in the Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction.

© Webster 1913.

Won"der, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Wondered (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Wondering.] [AS. wundrian.]

1.

To be affected with surprise or admiration; to be struck with astonishment; to be amazed; to marvel.

I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals. Swift.

We cease to wonder at what we understand. Johnson.

2.

To feel doubt and curiosity; to wait with uncertain expectation; to query in the mind; as, he wondered why they came.

I wonder, in my soul, What you would ask me, that I should deny. Shak.

© Webster 1913.

Won"der, a.

Wonderful.

Gower.

After that he said a wonder thing. Chaucer.

© Webster 1913.

Won"der, adv.

Wonderfully.

Chaucer.

© Webster 1913.