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beauty

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

6 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "beauty", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "beauty" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "beauty" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

beauty is aEnglishnoun. It means: The quality of being (especially visually) attractive, pleasing, fine or good-looking; comeliness. Pronounced /ˈbjuːti/. It ranks #1,809 in English word frequency. Often confused with betty and beaux.

Key facts for beauty
PropertyValue
Headwordbeauty
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˈbjuːti/
Letters6
Frequency rank#1,809
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs11
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of beauty in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for beauty is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbjuːti/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,809 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for beauty, with forms such as "baeuty", "bbeauty", and "beatuy". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 11 confusable-pair relationships, "betty", "beaux", "beat", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dewh₂-der.? Proto-Italic *dwenos Old Latin duenos Old Latin duonusder. Old Latin *duenelos Vulgar Latin bellus Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Proto-Italic *-tāts Vulgar La… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is beauty, spelled B-E-A-U-T-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    The quality of being (especially visually) attractive, pleasing, fine or good-looking; comeliness.
  2. 2
    Someone who is beautiful.
  3. 3
    Those aspects or elements that make someone or something beautiful.
  4. 4
    Something that is particularly good or pleasing.
  5. 5
    An excellent or egregious example of something.
  6. 6
    The excellence or genius of a scheme or decision.
  7. 7
    A beauty quark (now called bottom quark).
  8. 8
    Beauty treatment; cosmetology.
  9. 9
    Prevailing style or taste; rage; fashion.
  10. 10
    Beautiful passages or extracts of poetry.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dewh₂-der.? Proto-Italic *dwenos Old Latin duenos Old Latin duonusder. Old Latin *duenelos Vulgar Latin bellus Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Proto-Italic *-tāts Vulgar Latin -tās Vulgar Latin *bellitātem Anglo-Norman biautébor. Middle English beaute English beauty From Middle English bewty, bewte, beaute, bealte, from Anglo-Norman and Old French beauté (early Old French spelling biauté), from Vulgar Latin *bellitātem (“beauty”), from Latin bellus (“beautiful, fair”); see beau. In this sense, mostly displaced native Old English fæġernes, whence Modern English fairness.

Synonyms

Antonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: baeuty,bbeauty,beatuy,beautty,beautyy,beauyt,beuaty,ebauty

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for beauty

Misspelling Variants of "beauty"

baeuty6bbeauty7beatuy6beautty7beautyy7beauyt6beuaty6ebauty6
Misspelling Variants of "beauty"

Frequency rank: #1,809 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "beauty"?
"beauty" is spelled B-E-A-U-T-Y. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈbjuːti/.
What does "beauty" mean?
As a noun, "beauty" means: The quality of being (especially visually) attractive, pleasing, fine or good-looking; comeliness.
What words are commonly confused with "beauty"?
"beauty" is commonly confused with "betty", "beaux", "beat". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "beauty"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "beauty" is /ˈbjuːti/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "beauty"?
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dewh₂-der.? Proto-Italic *dwenos Old Latin duenos Old Latin duonusder. Old Latin *duenelos Vulgar Latin bellus Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Proto-Italic *-tāts... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.