beauty
n. C / Un. the quality of being very pleasing to look at or listen to. It can also describe a person who is very attractive or a specific thing that is excellent.
n. a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. Often used abstractly to describe excellence or a particularly effective feature of a system or plan.
The natural beauty of the mountains is breathtaking.
The beauty of this new software is that it automatically saves your work every few seconds.
While critics debated the technical merits of the painting, the public was simply drawn to the raw beauty of its vibrant colors and emotional depth.
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dewh₂-der.? Proto-Italic *dwenos Old Latin duenos Old Latin duonusder. Old Latin *duenelos Vulgar Latin bellus Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Proto-Italic *-tāts Vulgar Latin -tās Vulgar Latin *bellitātem Anglo-Norman biautébor. Middle English beaute English 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.
Uncountable when referring to the abstract quality; countable when referring to a specific person or a particular advantage of a situation.
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age before beauty
A phrase said to allow older people to go before younger ones.
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beauty queen
The female winner of a beauty contest.
- 03
beauty sleep
Originally, sleep taken before midnight, on the belief that early sleep hours conduce to beauty and health; now (chiefly humorous), sleep at any time needed by one to stay beautiful; (countable) an instance of such sleep.