beauty

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.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbjuːti/
  • (US) IPA^(key): [ˈbjuɾi]

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• (Norfolk) IPA^(key): /ˈbuːti/
• (Norfolk) Homophone: booty
• Rhymes: -uːti

beauty (countable and uncountable, plural beauties)

1. The quality of being (especially visually) attractive, pleasing, fine or good-looking; comeliness.
   • 1818, John Keats, “Book I”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] [T. Miller] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, lines 1–5, page 3:

     A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness; but still will keep / A bower quiet for us, and a sleep / Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     `Say, hast thou seen enough!' `I have looked on beauty, and I am blinded,' I said hoarsely, lifting my hand to cover up my eyes.

   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, “chapter I”, in The House Behind the Cedars:

     Warwick's first glance had revealed the fact that the young woman was strikingly handsome, with a stately beauty seldom encountered.

   • 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 152:

     "The aviators didn't get him," Denham replied slowly. "What?" "It was Beauty. As always Beauty killed the Beast."

   • 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.

   What a goal! That was a real beauty!

4. An excellent or egregious example of something.

   He got into a fight and ended up with two black eyes – two real beauties!

5. (with the definite article) The excellence or genius of a scheme or decision.

   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.
   • 1653, Jeremy Taylor, “Twenty-five Sermons Preached at Golden Grove; Being for the Winter Half-year, […]: Sermon XVIII. [The Marriage Ring; or, The Mysteriousness and Duties of Marriage.] Part II.”, in Reginald Heber, editor, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D. […], volume V, London: Ogle, Duncan, and Co. […]; and Richard Priestley, […], published 1822, →OCLC, page 277:

     Menander in the comedy brings in a man turning his wife from his house, because she stained her hair yellow, which was then the beauty.

9. (archaic, in the plural) Beautiful passages or extracts of poetry.

• 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.

• (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

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

• → Cebuano: byuti

• usefulness

beauty

1. (Canada) Thanks!
2. (Canada) Cool!

   It's the long weekend. Beauty!

beauty (comparative more beauty, superlative most beauty)

1. (Canada) Of high quality, well done.

   He made a beauty pass through the neutral zone.

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

1. (obsolete, transitive) To make beautiful.

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

Borrowed from English beauty.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbjuː.ti/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: beau‧ty

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.

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