From Old English (before 12th century), from Proto-Germanic '*wundrą' ("wonder, marvel").
A feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, or unfamiliar; a strange or remarkable thing.
From Old English 'wundor' (marvel, miracle, portent, object of astonishment), from Proto-Germanic '*wundrą' (wonder), of unknown ultimate origin. Some scholars have tentatively connected it to German 'Wunde' (wound) through a shared sense of 'striking' — what strikes you causes wonder — but this remains speculative. The word has been central to English since its earliest records; it appears extensively in Beowulf. In Old English, 'wundor' carried more weight than modern 'wonder' — it implied the truly miraculous, the genuinely inexplicable, the kind of thing that challenged reality. Key roots: *wundrą (Proto-Germanic: "wonder, marvel").
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were called 'theamata' (θεάματα, things to be seen) in Greek — a word related to 'theater.' When English adopted the concept, it chose its own native 'wonder' rather than translating the Greek, making the 'Seven Wonders' a rare case where English preferred its Germanic vocabulary over a classical borrowing.