noun
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a lover, sweetheart, or escort of a girl or woman
-
a man who is greatly concerned with his clothes and appearance; dandy
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of beau
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from French, from Latin bellus “beautiful”
Explanation
A beau is an old-fashioned term for "boyfriend." When your great-grandmother was young, she probably had a beau. Beau means "handsome" in French. Pronounce it the same way the French do, with a long o: "boh." The word recalls more innocent times, when gentleman courted their ladies and skirts barely rose above ankle level. You'll hardly ever hear beau used today, unless you're watching a movie, play or television drama set in the past.
Vocabulary lists containing beau
Scrabble: Four-Letter Words with 3 Vowels
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The Glass Menagerie
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The Haunting of Hill House
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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:
Timby extended her time in Ireland and documented much of it for her newfound following - but she didn't reveal anything about her new beau.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
When she begins dating the owner of a local pet shop, Iona immediately falls in step with her yuppie new beau.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2026
When I ask for his American political beau ideal, he says Alexander Hamilton.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
Was this the last time the music megastar would grace the Kelce family luxury suite to watch her beau rack up the receptions?
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 26, 2025
It was easy to see he needed looking after, but what did she need that an old man could give when she already had a beau her own age who was anxious to marry her?
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
This is a huge limitation, as Flock has been used by officers to track not just exes but the new beaus with whom they have moved on.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026
As fate would have it, all that time spent researching how bats find their beaus may have led to another pairing.
From National Geographic ● Feb. 14, 2024
To fight back, he started giving in-person architecture tours — in Kyiv and elsewhere — with hopes of convincing more people that his brutalist beaus are worth keeping.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 25, 2022
How many gatherings will it take before these reluctant beaus admit to their affection?
From New York Times ● Oct. 28, 2020
Perhaps after November after I prove up, I can think about beaus.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
What strikes you first are his scenes’ forthright emotions—a group of women tearfully sending their beaux off to fight in World War II, the isolation of a young man dining alone at a cafeteria.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
The entire family showed up, including Kylie Jenner in a white ballgown with a matching hat and big sister Kourtney Kardashian in deconstructed Thom Browne to go with beaux Travis Barker’s Thom Browne suit.
From Washington Times ● May 3, 2022
After climbing a dusty marble staircase, visitors are ushered into a parlor dimly lit by a beaux arts chandelier where workers tramp in and out carrying glasses of steaming tea.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2019
The book, as it stands, feels ominously loveless, more hospitable to dolts than to eligible beaux, yet at least seven writers have sought to flesh it out and, in so doing, to warm it up.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 5, 2017
“How does Washington come on? Many beaux? Many believers? Many friends? Answer these questions you wicked little Maggie.”
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
