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Word of the Day Archive
Monday April 16, 2001

pulchritude \PUL-kruh-tood; -tyood\, noun:
That quality of appearance which pleases the eye; beauty; comeliness; grace; loveliness.

No stranger aftermath developed after the war, Thorek recalled, "than the sudden hope, surging through feminine -- and sometimes masculine -- hearts, that where nature had been niggardly in her gifts of pulchritude, the knife of the surgeon could remedy the lack."
-- Elizabeth Haiken, Venus Envy

While other symbols of postwar pulchritude have gone into seclusion, become anti-vivisectionists or begun hawking designer eyeglasses, Gina Lollobrigida continues to tend her image with a fully sequined sense of responsibility to the legend.
-- Mitchell Owens, "A Body of Work That's Not Just a Body", New York Times, January 11, 1995

Where Linda has her infectious charm, Polly has only her empty pulchritude.
-- Hannah Betts, "Sixty years on, and it's still a gel thing", Times (London), February 3, 2001

Pulchritude comes from Latin pulchritudo, from pulcher, "beautiful." The adjective form is pulchritudinous.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for pulchritude

 

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