a. Forms: 6 beaute-, beuti-, beuty-, bewti-, bewtyfull, beuty-, butyful, 6–7 beauti, beautyfull, 6– beautiful. [f. BEAUTY sb. + -FUL. Occas. compared with -er, -est, usually with more, most.] Full of beauty, possessing the qualities which constitute beauty.
1. Excelling in grace of form, charm of coloring, 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 Mem., 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.
2. 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.’
1868. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-Bks. (1879), II. 202. It had been the beautifullest of weather all day.
Mod. Beethoven’s most beautiful sonata.
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., Discolliminium, 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, Metric Syst., 148. The theory of this nomenclature is perfectly simple and beautiful.
1876. Hamerton, Intell. Life, VIII. i. 275. A beautiful patience, and resignation.
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, -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-sb.
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.
