illustrious
adj.very famous and respected because of great achievements. You use this to describe someone with a long, successful career.
adj.highly distinguished, renowned, or eminent. Often describes a career, history, or person of significant accomplishment.
“She enjoyed an illustrious career as a concert pianist.”
“The university is proud of its illustrious alumni, which include several Nobel Prize winners and world leaders.”
“After decades of public service, the senator retired with an illustrious reputation for integrity and bipartisan cooperation.”
Typically used attributively before a noun; often pairs with 'career', 'history', or 'reputation'.
“Will Alves, Joseph and Sammy Braybrooke started and looked the most adept in difficult circumstances, while their more illustrious colleagues hid from battle.”
“Tómas Magnússon had the home fans dreaming of a famous win over their illustrious opponents after firing in the opener in the 77th minute.”
From Latin illūstris (“bright, shining; distinguished, prominent, illustrious”) + -ous (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree). Illūstris is derived from illūstrō (“to brighten, illuminate; to make famous or illustrious”), from in- (“in, inside”) + lūstrō (“to purify by making a sacrifice; to brighten, illuminate”) (from lūstrō (“purificatory sacrifice”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European lewk- (“bright; to shine”) or lewh₃- (“to wash”)).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.