beau ideal
noun
a conception of perfect beauty.
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beau ideal
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beau idéal
beau idéalnounperfect beauty or excellence
beau ideal
Americannoun
beaus ideal,
plural
beaux ideal,
plural
beau ideals
plural
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a conception of perfect beauty.
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a model of excellence.
beau idéal
British
/ bo ideal /
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:
When I ask for his American political beau ideal, he says Alexander Hamilton.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
Their friendship was the beau ideal of warrior comrades.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 8, 2022
Or so goes the famous line by Irving Howe, the beau ideal of the politically engaged writer and a founder of the left-wing intellectual magazine Dissent.
From New York Times ● Jul. 2, 2014
His birthplace, Urbino, was also that of Raphael, the beau ideal to whom all painters aspired.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 16, 2013
He seems, indeed, to be the delight of human kind, as their beau ideal of human nature.
From The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1 by Webster, Daniel
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
To him Rousseau was in all probability little more than an abstract "beau idéal," but Rousseau's abstractions were no mere abstractions to the pioneer American farmer.
From A History of Trade Unionism in the United States by Perlman, Selig
She would have made a beautiful picture; Sir Joshua Reynolds would have rejoiced in such a model—so simply graceful and unaffected, the very beau idéal of savage life and unadorned nature.
From Life in the Backwoods by Moodie, Susanna
That I, Captain Levee, who had commanded his vessels so long—I, the very beau idéal of a privateersman, a reckless, extravagant dare-devil, should also presume to have scruples, was too much for him.
From The Privateersman by Marryat, Frederick
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.
