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
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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.
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:
The Chopin that emerges in “Becoming George” is far from a Romantic beau ideal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
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
His father was Archie’s beau ideal indeed of all that was worth being, or saying, or knowing, in this world; and Rupert’s as well.
From From Squire to Squatter A Tale of the Old Land and the New by Gordon Stables
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 Selig Perlman
His beau idéal of life is to make wife and children work for, feed and clothe him, whilst he lies in the shady piazza, removing his parasites and enjoying porcine existence.
From To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II A Personal Narrative by Sir Richard Francis Burton
There she beheld the beau idéal of her imagination—the very object of her widow’s dreams—the antipodes of Vanslyperken, and as superior as “Hyperion to a Satyr.”
From Snarley-yow or The Dog Fiend by Frederick Marryat
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.
