Aesthetically

How to spell aesthetically

13 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce aesthetically

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does aesthetically mean?

1. adverbIn a way that relates to beauty or the appreciation of visual appearance.

Aesthetically in a sentence

• The renovated lobby is far more aesthetically pleasing than the old one.

• The designer arranged the photographs to be aesthetically balanced across the wall.

Where does aesthetically come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek aisthetikos, meaning 'perceptive' or 'relating to sense perception', which itself grew from the verb aisthanesthai, 'to perceive' or 'to feel'. For the Greeks the term was about sensory awareness in general rather than beauty specifically. The narrower modern sense, concerning the appreciation of beauty and good taste, was popularised in the eighteenth century by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten, who used the Latinised Aesthetica as the name for the study of beauty. English absorbed the adjective 'aesthetic' in the early 1800s and built the adverb 'aesthetically' on top of it. The retained 'ae' at the front, a fossil of the original Greek diphthong, is exactly the spelling trap, since it is pronounced as a simple short 'e' and tempts writers to drop the 'a' entirely.

How the word is built

• aesthet- (from Greek aisthetikos: perceptive, relating to sense perception)
• -ic (adjective)
• -al (adjective)
• -ly (adverb)

British and American spelling

Aesthetically is the British spelling. American English spells it esthetically.