beauteous

English

Etymology

From Middle English beautevous, bewteose, beautuous, boyteous, beuteus, beuteowse, bewtyvows, equivalent to beauty +‎ -ous and/or beauty +‎ -eous.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbjuːtɪəs/, /ˈbjuːtʃəs/
• Rhymes: -uːtiəs

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

beauteous (comparative more beauteous, superlative most beauteous)

1. (literary, formal or poetic) beautiful.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 34”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […]‎^[1], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

     VVhy didſt thou promiſe ſuch a beautious day,
     And make me trauaile forth without my cloake,
     To let bace cloudes ore-take me in my way,
     Hiding thy brau'ry in their rotten ſmoke.

   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 17, column 2:

     O wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there heere? / How beauteous mankinde is? O braue new world / That has ſuch people in't.

   • 1709, Matthew Prior, “Henry and Emma. […]”, in The Poetical Works of Matthew Prior […], volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan, […], published 1779, →OCLC, page 246:

     Let Prudence yet obſtruct thy venturous way; / And take good heed, what men will think and ſay: / That beauteous Emma vagrant courſes took; / Her father's houſe and civil life forſook; / That, full of youthful blood, and fond of man; / She to the wood-land with an exile ran.

Derived terms

• beauteously
• beauteousness
• unbeauteous