beauty

English

Etymology

From Middle English bewty, bewte, beaute, bealte, from Anglo-Norman and Old French beauté (early Old French spelling biauté), from Vulgar Latin *bellitās (“beauty”), from Latin bellus (“beautiful, fair”); see beau.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈbjuːti/
    • (US) IPA(key): /ˈbjuɾi/
    • Audio (US)(file)
  • (Norfolk) IPA(key): /ˈbuːti/
  • (Norfolk) Homophone: booty
  • Rhymes: -uːti

Noun

beauty (countable and uncountable, plural beauties)

  1. The quality of being (especially visually) attractive, pleasing, fine or good-looking; comeliness.
    • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,
      Warwick's first glance had revealed the fact that the young woman was strikingly handsome, with a stately beauty seldom encountered.
    • 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.
    Brigitte Bardot was a renowned beauty.
  3. Something that is particularly good or pleasing.
    That phrasing is a beauty.
    What a goal, what a beauty.
  4. An excellent or egregious example of something.
  5. (with the definite article) The excellence, e.g. the genius
    The beauty of the deal is it costs nothing!
  6. (physics, obsolete) A beauty quark (now called bottom quark).
  7. Beauty treatment; cosmetology.
  8. (obsolete) Prevailing style or taste; rage; fashion.
    • Jeremy Taylor
      She stained her hair yellow, which was then the beauty.

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): gorgeousness, inspiration, loveliness, for semantic relationships of this sense, see beauty in the Thesaurus.
  • (someone who is beautiful): belle, looker, for semantic relationships of this sense, see beautiful person or beautiful woman in the Thesaurus.
  • (something pleasing): gem, jewel

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

See also

Interjection

beauty

  1. (Canada) Thanks! 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.

Further reading

  • beauty in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
  • beauty in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English beauty.

Pronunciation

  • Audio(file)
  • 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
    Die prachtige hengst is al net zo'n beauty als z'n ruiter
    That gorgeous stallion is as much of a beauty as his rider
  3. Human beauty, as the object or goal of cosmetics etc.

Synonyms

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