beautiful, a. (and n.)
(ˈbjuːtɪfʊl)
Forms: 6 beaute-, beuti-, beuty-, bewti-, bewtyfull, beuty-, butyful, 6–7 beauti-, beautyfull, 6– beautiful.
[f. beauty n. + -ful. Occas. compared with -er, -est, usually with more, most.]
A. adj. Full of beauty, possessing the qualities which constitute beauty.
1. Excelling in grace of form, charm of colouring, and other qualities which delight the eye, and call forth admiration: a. of the human face or figure.
| 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 3 Whose swete visage was moost beautefull. 1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. v. ii. 362 Lewis, Prince of Tarentum, one of the beautifullest men in the world. 1716–8 Lady Montague Lett. I. xiii. 46 The only beautiful young woman I have seen. a 1842 Tennyson Ode to Memory 39 Spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful. |
b. of other objects.
| 1526 Tindale Matt. xxiii. 27 Paynted tombes, which appere beautyfull outwardes. 1611 Bible Ps. xlviii. 2 Beautifull for situation, the ioy of the whole earth is mount Sion. 1788 Lond. Mag. 64 One of the beautifullest of the whole parrot kind. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. §12. 90 Below us was the beautiful valley of Chamouni. |
c. Used for emphasis or ironically, after the noun it qualifies.
The expression the House Beautiful is taken from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, where Beautiful is to be regarded as a proper name.
| 1857 C. M. Yonge Dynevor Terrace II. xx. 306 ‘I must look in at the House Beautiful,’ said Louis. 1880 W. Robinson (title) God's Acre Beautiful or the Cemeteries of the Future. 1883 O. Wilde Lett. (1962) 151 (lecture-title) The House Beautiful. 1899 W. Robinson Eng. Flower Garden (ed. 7) 181 The Summer Garden Beautiful. Ibid. 378 The Orchard Beautiful. 1904 Kipling Traffics & Discov. 357 The front of the House Beautiful. 1917 Ladies' Home Jrnl. Feb. 78/4 Send two cent stamp for ‘The Body Beautiful’ and trial plan today. 1929 Melody Maker Feb. 128 (Advt.), The new song-sensation by the writer of ‘Charmaine’. ‘Anita’. ‘The waltz beautiful.’ 1941 L. MacNeice Poetry of W. B. Yeats iv. 82 Pater's doctrine of the Body Beautiful. |
2. a. Affording keen pleasure to the senses generally, especially that of hearing; delightful. In modern colloquial use the word is often applied to anything that a person likes very much, e.g. ‘beautiful pears,’ ‘she makes beautiful soup,’ ‘a beautiful ride.’ (Sometimes difficult to distinguish from 3.)
| 1868 Hawthorne Amer. Note-bks. (1879) II. 202 It had been the beautifullest of weather all day. a 1887 Mod. Beethoven's most beautiful sonata. 1899 Kipling Stalky 60 Everybody paid in full—beautiful feelin'. |
b. beautiful people orig. U.S. (occas. written with capital initials), (a) ‘flower’ people, hippies; (b) wealthy, fashionable people; the ‘smart set’.
| 1964 Vogue 15 Feb. 49 What the beautiful people are doing to keep fit. 1966 Mrs. L. B. Johnson White House Diary 23 Jan. (1970) 356 ‘The Beautiful People’ are all heading for Acapulco and in the list of the beautiful people was Lynda Bird's name. 1967 Spectator 4 Aug. 131/1 Far from being one of the Beautiful People, I was in an ugly frame of mind. 1970 Ladies Home Jrnl. Sept. 81/1 Cleveland Amory..feels that the Beautiful People and the Jet Set are being threatened by current economics. 1986 Photography Nov. 61/1 The socialites..take Olympus cameras among people who are not photographers—the beautiful people. |
3. Impressing with charm the intellectual or moral sense, through inherent fitness or grace, or exact adaptation to a purpose; hence sometimes applied to things that, in other aspects, are even repulsive, as ‘a beautiful operation in surgery.’
| 1587 Golding De Mornay vi. 77 The vnderstanding is beautifull, and the most beautifull of all. 1650 B. Discollimin. 19 The Providences of God are wonderfull and beautifull. 1739 Hume Hum. Nat. ii. ii. Wks. 1874 I. 337 Another argument..which seems to me very strong and beautiful. 1819 J. Q. Adams in Davies Metr. Syst. 148 The theory of this nomenclature is perfectly simple and beautiful. 1824 Sporting Mag. XIV. 165/2 Spring made some beautiful stops, left and right [in boxing]. 1876 Hamerton Intell. Life viii. i. 275 A beautiful patience, and resignation. 1929 M. de la Roche Whiteoaks xvi. 226 I'll never forget how beautiful you were to me. 1967 N.Y. Times (Internat. Ed.) 11–12 Feb. 9/2 The beautiful part of it..is that the trade is across the board, not limited to certain big sectors. 1967 Boston Sunday Herald Mag. 30 Apr. 32/3 ‘We had one guy,’ he said, ‘he was so beautiful. A jazz musician who also wrote children's books.’ 1968 Crescendo June 12/2 Maynard was a great leader... He was beautiful for the whole spirit of the band. |
4. Relating to the beautiful; æsthetic. rare.
| 1814 W. Taylor Month. Rev. 155 Lady Russell's letters have rather a moral and political than a beautiful value. |
5. Comb., as beautiful-browed, beautiful-minded.
| a 1830 Tennyson Œnone 69 Beautiful-browed Œnone, my own soul. 1865 Masson Rec. Brit. Philos. 43 A beautiful-minded Berkeley. |
B. absol. quasi-n.
1. = Beautiful one.
| 1535 Coverdale Song Sol. ii. 10 My loue, my doue, my beutyfull. 1819 Byron Juan iv. lviii, Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own. |
2. That which is beautiful. the beautiful: the name given to the general notion which the mind forms of the assemblage of qualities which constitute beauty.
| 1756 Burke Subl. & B. iv. §22. 299 We may here call sweetness the beautiful of the taste. 1856 Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh ii. 97 So you judge! Because I love the beautiful I must Love pleasure chiefly. 1861 in Macm. Mag. June 126 The Beautiful in nature is the unmarred result of God's first creative or forming will; and the beautiful in art is the result of an unmistaken working of man in accordance with the beautiful in nature. |
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▸ the beautiful game: association football.
| 1977 ‘Pelé’ & R. L. Fish (title) Pelé: my life and the beautiful game. The autobiography of Pelé. 1996 J. King Football Factory (1997) 54 And a lot of people were getting mega-rich from the beautiful game now it was adopting sensible business practices. 2004 Boys Toys July 42/2 What the Euro 2004 footy tournament is really all about is getting a few bevs in, ordering a mass takeaway, and inviting all your mates round to bond over the beautiful game. |