tubular

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   shaped like a tube or made from one or more tubes

   The bird forced air through its tubular bill to produce a resonant note.

2. 2
   adj

   informal and dated: excellent or impressive

   Surfers in the 1980s might have called an exceptional wave tubular.

From Latin tubulus, 'small tube,' + -ar. The slang sense arose in twentieth-century surfing from a wave curling into a tube around the surfer and then broadened to mean excellent or impressive.

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