beauty

beauty

synonyms, antonyms, definitions, examples & translations of beauty in English

English Online Dictionary. What means beauty‎? What does beauty mean?

English

Etymology

From Middle English bewty, bewte, beaute, bealte, from Anglo-Norman and Old French beauté (early Old French spelling biauté), from Vulgar Latin *bellitātem (beauty), from Latin bellus (beautiful, fair); see beau. In this sense, mostly displaced native Old English fæġernes, whence Modern English fairness.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈbjuːti/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈbjuti/, [-ɾi]
  • (Canada) IPA(key): [ˈbju̟ti], [ˈbju̟ːɾi], [ˈb(j)ɪu̯ɾ̥ɪ]
  • (Norfolk) IPA(key): /ˈbuːti/
  • Homophone: booty (Norfolk)
  • Rhymes: -uːti
  • Hyphenation: beau‧ty

Noun

beauty (countable and uncountable, plural beauties)

  1. The quality of being (especially visually) attractive, pleasing, fine or good-looking; comeliness.
    • 1988, "… beauty and recollection, like danger, glamour, greed, hunger- everything but disappointment and desire- were concepts belonging to other people.” -Second Son, Robert Ferro
  2. Someone who is beautiful.
  3. Something that is particularly good or pleasing.
  4. An excellent or egregious example of something.
  5. (with the definite article) The excellence or genius of a scheme or decision.
  6. (physics, obsolete) A beauty quark (now called bottom quark).
  7. Beauty treatment; cosmetology.
  8. (obsolete) Prevailing style or taste; rage; fashion.
  9. (archaic, in the plural) Beautiful passages or extracts of poetry.

Usage notes

  • Adjectives often applied to "beauty": natural, great, real, physical, exotic, inner, spiritual, strange, divine, visual, heavenly, intellectual, facial, attractive, sensuous, sensual, seductive, musical, austere, alluring, mathematical, geometric, astounding, bodily, pictorial.

Synonyms

  • (property, quality): good-lookingness, gorgeousness, inspiration, loveliness, see Thesaurus:beauty
  • (someone who is beautiful): belle, looker, good looker, see Thesaurus:beautiful person or Thesaurus:beautiful woman
  • (something pleasing): gem, jewel

Antonyms

  • (property, quality): repulsiveness, homeliness, ugliness

Derived terms

Descendants

  • Cebuano: byuti

Translations

See also

  • usefulness

Interjection

beauty

  1. (Canada) Thanks!
  2. (Canada) Cool!
    It's the long weekend. Beauty!

Adjective

beauty (comparative more beauty, superlative most beauty)

  1. (Canada) Of high quality, well done.
    He made a beauty pass through the neutral zone.

Verb

beauty (third-person singular simple present beauties, present participle beautying, simple past and past participle beautied)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To make beautiful.

Further reading

  • “beauty”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
  • “beauty”, in The Century Dictionary [], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English beauty.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈbjuː.ti/
  • Hyphenation: beau‧ty

Noun

beauty f (plural beauty's, diminutive beauty'tje n)

  1. A beauty, looker, beautiful person
  2. A beautiful other creature or thing
  3. Human beauty, as the object or goal of cosmetics etc.

Synonyms

  • schoonheid
  • (beautiful thing only): juweeltje n, prachtexemplaar n

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This article based on an article on Wiktionary. The list of authors can be seen in the page history there. The original work has been modified. This article is distributed under the terms of this license.