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beau ideal
beau idealnouna conception of perfect beauty.
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beau idéal
beau idéalnounperfect beauty or excellence
beau ideal
Americannoun
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beaus ideal,
plural
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beaux ideal,
plural
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beau ideals
plural
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a conception of perfect beauty.
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a model of excellence.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of beau ideal
First recorded in 1795–1805, beau ideal is from French beau idéal literally, “ideal beauty.” See beau, ideal
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It’s not surprising that Mr. Serrano found his way to Ms. Wilson, who, like Mr. Duncan, the author’s beau ideal of a player, “banks in beauty.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
Their friendship was the beau ideal of warrior comrades.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 8, 2022
His birthplace, Urbino, was also that of Raphael, the beau ideal to whom all painters aspired.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 16, 2013
Arsenal's manager, Arsene Wenger, is one of soccer's great self-dooming visionaries, a gaunt Frenchman who'd rather lose matches than sacrifice his beau ideal of how to play the game.
From Slate ● Apr. 14, 2011
Esau considered it just the beau ideal of a trout stream, for any fish hooked in it gave a lot of trouble before he was safe in the bag.
From Three in Norway by Two of Them by Clutterbuck, Walter J.
Will’s beau idéal, Ronald Reagan, used it frequently on the rubber-chicken-and-peas circuit.
From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2025
It dominated the public discussion, especially among young English economists in training, for whom the brilliant, dashing, socially connected Keynes was a beau idéal.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 18, 2017
The road was narrow and winding, the very beau idéal of a highway; for, in this particular, the general rule obtains that what is agreeable is the least useful.
From Recollections of Europe by Cooper, James Fenimore
Surely not without reason, when pirates, highwaymen, and other varieties of the extensive genus Marauder, are the only beau idéal of the active, as splenetic and railing misanthropy is of the speculative energy.
From Nightmare Abbey by Peacock, Thomas Love
Mr. McCulloch, who succeeded Mr. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury, was my beau idéal of an administrator.
From The Reminiscences of an Astronomer by Newcomb, Simon
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.