Word of the Day:

August 1, 2021

pulchritude

noun PUHL-kruh-tood

What it Means

: physical comeliness

Pulchritude in Context

The magazine features a photo essay of celebrities who are famed for their Hollywood stardom and pulchritude.

"Sadly, Renee's judgment on Mrs. Appleyard's baby's pulchritude, or lack of it, turned out to be true—he was an 'ugly little thing.'" — Kate Atkinson, Life After Life: A Novel, 2013

More example sentences

Did You Know?

Pulchritude is a descendant of the Latin adjective pulcher, which means "beautiful." Pulcher hasn't exactly been a wellspring of English terms, but it did give English both pulchritude and pulchritudinous, an adjective meaning "attractive" or "beautiful." The verb pulchrify (a synonym of beautify), the noun pulchritudeness (same meaning as pulchritude), and the adjective pulchrous (meaning "fair or beautiful") are other pulcher offspring, but those terms have proved that, in at least some linguistic cases, beauty is fleeting.

Quiz

Beau is a French borrowing of a word that describes a man as "good-looking." What is the equivalent French adjective for a woman?

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