Definition of "-ous" []

• Possessing; full of; characterized by: joyous. (suffix)
• Having a valence lower than that of a specified element in compounds or ions named with adjectives ending in -ic: ferrous. (suffix)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "So he dropped the -al from sensual and substituted -ous, writing, “The Soule … finding the ease she had from her visible, and sensuous colleague the body.”"