This week’s theme
Unusual synonyms

This week’s words
susurration
temulent
trepidant
viscid
pulchritudinous


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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(puhl-kri-TOOD/TYOOD-uh-nuhs)

MEANING:

adjective: Physically beautiful; comely.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin pulchritudo (beauty), from pulcher (beautiful). Earliest documented use: 1706.

NOTES:

A suspiciously unlovely word meaning lovely. It is the only synonym for gorgeous that sounds like a chronic throat condition. Calling someone pulchritudinous on a first date is a highly effective way to remain single.

USAGE:

“Legend has it (and legend usually does) that, one hot summer’s day, a lusty young shepherd, eating his lunch in the cool of a local cave, spotted a pulchritudinous young lady and put down his cheese sandwich in order to better pursue her. He returned a few days later to find the bread had gone mouldy, but the cheese had taken on handsome blue pockmarks (thanks to the Penicillium roqueforti), which apparently tasted delicious. Roquefort was born.”
Tom Parker Bowles; Tour de Fromage; Country Life (Bath, UK); Mar 26, 2025.

See more usage examples of pulchritudinous in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: