Beautiful

//ˈbju.tɪ.fəl// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Someone who is beautiful. Can be used as a term of address.

    "The man was faithful to his wife, ignoring the many blonde beautifuls who surrounded him wherever he went."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Possessing beauty, impressing the eye; attractive.

    "Anyone who has ever met her thought she was absolutely beautiful."

  2. 2
    Possessing beauty, impressing the eye; attractive.; Used emphatically or ironically, after the noun it qualifies.

    "the house beautiful"

  3. 3
    That one likes very much.

    "He was a beautiful person; he would drop everything to help you."

  4. 4
    Affording pleasure to any of the senses, especially that of hearing; delightful.

    "Beethoven's most beautiful sonata"

  5. 5
    Impressing with charm in an intellectual or moral way, through inherent suitability or elegance.

    "The skater performed a beautiful axel."

Adjective
  1. 1
    delighting the senses or exciting intellectual or emotional admiration wordnet
  2. 2
    (of weather) highly enjoyable wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
beauteouslovelyprettybonnyexcellentexquisite

Example

More examples

"Innocence is a beautiful thing."

Etymology

From Middle English bewteful, beautefull (“attractive to the eye, beautiful”), equivalent to beauty + -ful. In this sense, largely displaced Old English fæġer (whence fair).

Related phrases

all cats are beautifulbeautiful armadillobeautiful fruit dovebeautiful gamebeautiful musicbeautiful peoplebee-utifulmake beautiful music togetheryou have beautiful eyesvery lovelyvery pretty

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.