Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A quality or combination of qualities that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is often associated with properties such as harmony of form or color, proportion, authenticity, and originality.
- noun One that is beautiful, especially a beautiful woman.
- noun A quality or feature that is most effective, gratifying, or telling.
- noun An outstanding or conspicuous example.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun That quality of an object by virtue of which the contemplation of it directly excites pleasurable emotions.
- noun A particular grace or charm; an embellishment or ornament.
- noun Any particular thing which is beautiful and pleasing; a part which surpasses in pleasing qualities that with which it is united: generally in the plural: as, the beauties of an author; the beauties of nature.
- noun A beautiful person; specifically, a beautiful woman; collectively, beautiful women: as, all the beauty of the place was present.
- noun Prevailing style or taste; rage; fashion.
- To render beautiful; adorn, beautify, or embellish.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An assemblage of graces or properties pleasing to the eye, the ear, the intellect, the æsthetic faculty, or the moral sense.
- noun A particular grace, feature, ornament, or excellence; anything beautiful.
- noun A beautiful person, esp. a beautiful woman.
- noun obsolete Prevailing style or taste; rage; fashion.
- noun a patch or spot placed on the face with intent to heighten beauty by contrast.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The property, quality or state of being "that which pleases merely by being perceived" (Aquinas); that which is
attractive ,pleasing ,fine or good looking;comeliness . - noun Someone who is
beautiful . - noun Something that is particularly
good orpleasing . - noun An
excellent oregregious example of something. - noun The
excellence , e.g. the genius - noun physics, obsolete A
beauty quark (now calledbottom quark ). - noun Beauty
treatment ;cosmetology . - interjection Canada Thanks! Cool!
- adverb Canada Of high quality, well done.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an outstanding example of its kind
- noun a very attractive or seductive looking woman
- noun the qualities that give pleasure to the senses
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Europeans, and it is certainly grand and interesting and in a certain sense beautiful, but not the calm, sweet, warm beauty of our own fields, and there is none of the brightness of our own flowers; a field of buttercups, a hill of gorse or of heather, a bank of foxgloves and a hedge of wild roses and purple vetches surpass in _beauty_ anything I have ever seen in the tropics.
Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 James Marchant
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In _Othello_, "if virtue lack no delighted beauty," i.e. "_want not the light of beauty_, your son-in-law shows far more fair than black."
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To the Greek, in fact, beauty and good had the same meaning -- _beauty was good_, and the good must be beautiful.
A History of Art for Beginners and Students Painting, Sculpture, Architecture Clara Erskine Clement Waters 1875
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It was listening to this music, at times so pathetic and sweet, that emotion would often lend almost supernatural beauty to his countenance, so that even Mr. Stendhall, the least enthusiastic of men, was wont to say with enthusiasm, _that never, in his whole life, had he seen any thing so beautiful and expressive as Lord Byron's look, or so sublime as his style of beauty_.
Lord Byron jugé par les témoins de sa vie. English Teresa Guiccioli 1836
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─but the hail has other reasons than serving and the wet eastern wind of evening does not dream of standing watch by my disenchanged lion sobs: no longer will I run after every passage of beauty,─beauty is defeated, never again at attention will I snuff out that fire now glimmering like an old tree trunk in which hollow swallows make nonsensical nests, child's lay, unreckoning misery, unreckoning misery of sympthy.
Amelia Rosselli greenintegerblog 2008
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In his case, the term 'beauty of the ragas' acquires a special meaning as he has to his credit the distinction of having created many new ragas.
Jim Luce: Indian Legend Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and Sons Perform in NYC Jim Luce 2011
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In his case, the term 'beauty of the ragas' acquires a special meaning as he has to his credit the distinction of having created many new ragas.
Jim Luce: Indian Legend Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and Sons Perform in NYC Jim Luce 2011
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In the movie, "we are taught and told that beauty is one thing, but when beauty comes from the inside, you are even more beautiful outside," Common says.
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In English the term beauty goes back to the French beauté, which in turn is derived from a conjectured vulgar Latin bellitatem, formed after the adjective bellus, which neither originally nor properly desig - nated something beautiful; pulcher and formosus had this function.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas HERBERT DIECKMANN 1968
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But the skin beauty is not the firmest hold she has on Temple's affections; this was not the beauty that had attracted her lover and held him enchained in her service for seven years of waiting and suspense; this was not the only light leading him through dark days of doubt, almost of despair, constant, unwavering in his troth to her.
Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple (1652-54) 1888
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A ‘Sleeping Beauty in Science’ is a publication that goes unnoticed (‘sleeps’) for a long time and then, almost suddenly, attracts a lot of attention (‘is awakened by a prince’).
Sleeping Beauties in science Anthony F. J. van Raan 2024
oroboros commented on the word beauty
Beauty has no duty.
(And that, says Uncle Faraway, is the beauty of it, and why all heroes are ugly.)--Jan Cox
January 9, 2008
jamiemck commented on the word beauty
The beauty industry would be happy with most of these definitions since the issue of inner beauty, heart and soul is pretty much neglected in favor of external looks. Little mention here of artifice, cosmetics or make-up.
December 19, 2009
fbharjo commented on the word beauty
For Simone Weil, "The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible."
March 23, 2010
oroboros commented on the word beauty
Beauty contains buy and eat. A sort-of Kangaroo word: BeaUtY - bEAuTy. See an animated version here.
February 17, 2011