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January 29, 2009

100 beautiful words

An online dictionary has listed the 100 most beautiful words in the English language. It’s funny, because once when the Ceeb stuck a mic in my face at the Griffins and asked what I thought the most beautiful word was, I think I scrambled for a moment and then said one of these. That said, I’m pretty sure they missed a few. Like “lottery” and “Guinness” and “Lisa Loeb”. (Thanks, CP)

1 adroit Dexterous, agile.
2 adumbrate To very gently suggest.
3 aestivate To summer, to spend the summer.
4 ailurophile A cat-lover.
5 beatific Befitting an angel or saint.
6 beleaguer To exhaust with attacks.
7 blandiloquent Beautiful and flattering.
8 caliginous Dark and misty.
9 champagne An effervescent wine.
10 chatoyant Like a cat’s eye.
11 chiaroscuro The arrangement of dark and light elements in a picture.
12 cockle A heart-shaped bivalve or a garden flower.
13 colporteur A book peddlar.
14 conflate To blend together, to combine different things.
15 cynosure A focal point of admiration.
16 desuetude Disuse.
17 diaphanous Filmy.
18 diffuse Spread out, not focused or concentrated.
19 dulcet Sweet, sugary.
20 ebullient Bubbling with enthusiasm.
21 effervescent Bubbly.
22 efflorescence Flowering, the opening of buds or a bloom.
23 elixir A good potion.
24 emollient A softener.
25 encomium A spoken or written work in praise of someone.
26 ephemeral Short-lived.
27 epicure A person who enjoys fine living, especially food and drink.
28 epiphany A sudden revelation.
29 erstwhile At one time, for a time.
30 eschew To reject or avoid.
31 esculent Edible.
32 esoteric Understood only by a small group of specialists.
33 ethereal Gaseous, invisible but detectable.
34 etiolate White from no contact with light.
35 evanescent Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.
36 exuberant Enthusiastic, excited.
37 felicitous Pleasing.
38 fescue A variety of grass favored for pastures.
39 foudroyant Dazzling.
40 fragile Very, very delicate.
41 fugacioius Running, escaping.
42 gambol To skip or leap about joyfully.
43 glamour Beauty.
44 gossamer The finest piece of thread, a spider’s silk.
45 halcyon Happy, sunny, care-free.
46 hymeneal Having to do with a wedding.
47 imbricate To overlap to form a regular pattern.
48 imbroglio An altercation or complicated situation.
49 imbue To infuse, instill.
50 incipient Beginning, in an early stage.
51 ingenue A naïve young woman.
52 inglenook The place beside the fireplace.
53 inspissate To thicken.
54 inure To jade.
55 jejune Dull; childish.
56 lagniappe A gift given to a customer for their patronage.
57 lagoon A small gulf or inlet in the sea.
58 languor Listlessness, inactivity.
59 lassitude Weariness, listlessness.
60 laughter The response to something funny.
61 lilt To move musically or lively, to have a lively sound.
62 lithe Slender and flexible.
63 loquacious Talkative.
64 luxuriant Thick, lavish.
65 mellifluous Sweet-sounding.
66 missive A message or letter.
67 moiety One of two equal parts, a half.
68 mondegreen A misanalyzed phrase.
69 nebulous Foggy.
70 niveous Snowy, snow-like.
71 obsequious Fawning, subservience.
72 odalisque A concubine in a harem.
73 oeuvre A work.
74 offing That part of the sea between the horizon and the offshore.
75 onomatopoeia The creation of words by imitating sound.
76 paean A formal expression of praise.
77 palimpsest A manuscript written over one or more earlier ones.
78 panacea A complete solution for all problems.
79 panoply A complete set.
80 pastiche A mixture of art work (art or music) from various sources.
81 peccadillo A peculiarity.
82 pelagic Related to the sea or ocean.
83 penumbra A half-shadow, the edge of a shadow.
84 peregrination Wandering, travels.
85 petrichor The smell of earth after a rain.
86 plethora A great excess, overabundance.
87 porcelain A fine white clay pottery.
88 potamophilous Loving rivers.
89 propinquity An inclination or preference.
90 Pyrrhic Victorious despite heavy losses.
91 quintessential The ultimate, the essence of the essence.
92 redolent Sweet-smelling.
93 rhapsody A beautiful musical piece.
94 riparian Having to do with the bank of a river or other body of water.
95 ripple A small, circular wave emanating from a central point.
96 scintillate To sparkle with brilliant light.
97 sempiternal Forever and ever.
98 seraglio Housing for a harem.
99 serendipity Finding something while looking for something else.
100 surreptitious Sneaky.

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12 comments on “100 beautiful words”

  1. susan says:

    Not a single Anglo-Saxon word among them! Why is that, I wonder?

  2. George says:

    Tolkien’s favourite was “cellar door” precisely because it was A-S. I agree!

  3. Matt C. says:

    (two n’s in Guinness)

  4. George says:

    I was drunk when I wrote that.

  5. Mary Soderstrom says:

    English is such a thief of a language, though. It’s hard to find a word aside from the most common (which tend to lose that quality which might be called “wonderfulness” from overuse) that doesn’t have its origin elsewhere. I like hopscotch and lollygaging (what’s the spelling?) myself.

    For more interesting stuff about English as a language, take a look at John McWhorter’s new book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English.

    And for the loveliest (that’s a nice one too) word in any language, I nominate janela, the Portuguese word for window.

    Mary

  6. silverfish says:

    I wonder if Le Guin noted Tolkien’s ‘cellar door’ when naming one of the islands in her Earthsea archipelago Selidor. (And, just by the by, I note that the common-tongue word for ’stone’ with which Ged starts his teaching of Tenar is ‘tolk.’) My vote for most mellifluous word, missed on this list: soliloquy.

  7. Kathryn says:

    They missed the c word.

  8. Nicole says:

    Darn, Kathryn, you beat me to it.

    Curious – no words that start with T, U, V, W, X, Y, and/or Z are beautiful, or they just hit 100 at S and called it a day?

  9. Lilian Nattel says:

    What happened to old Strunk & White? Didn’t they say never use a $100 word if a $5 word will do?

  10. Matt C. says:

    Nicole – good point. Certainly “zephyr” should qualify.

  11. Basil Sands says:

    I like the way “Zoroastrian” rolls off the tongue.

    But one of the loveliest words in the minds of those who enjoy the beauty of Guinness should also be “urination” or the softer sounding yet still as calming “urinal”. The latter, when pronounced with a French or Spanish acent, can even sound quasi-romantic…especially when the the Guinness has been spoken several times before hand.

  12. ZW says:

    If I never see the word palimpsest again, it’ll be too soon.

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