Beauty

How to spell beauty

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce beauty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does beauty mean?

1. nounThe quality in a person or thing that gives great pleasure to the senses or the mind.
2. nounA person or thing regarded as strikingly attractive or excellent.

Beauty in a sentence

• The beauty of the coastline drew photographers from across the country.

• The restored vintage car was a real beauty.

• She admired the beauty of the handcrafted wooden table.

• The model was considered a beauty in the fashion world.

Where does beauty come from?

Language of origin: French

Beauty arrived in English in the 1200s from Old French biauté or beaute, meaning loveliness or fineness of form. That French word traces back to the Latin adjective bellus, which meant pretty, handsome, or fine, and which also gives us words like 'belle' and 'embellish'. The French spelling carried the tell-tale 'eau' cluster into English, and that vowel string is exactly why the word is tricky: three vowels in a row spell a sound an English speaker would not naturally guess. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from physical attractiveness to cover any quality that delights the senses or mind, so we now speak of the beauty of an idea as readily as the beauty of a face. The closely related 'beautiful' keeps the same French stem, which is worth remembering whenever the 'eau' threatens to slip.

How the word is built

• beaut- (from Latin bellus: pretty, fine)
• -y (noun suffix forming an abstract quality)