What Is The Most Beautiful Word in The English Language - Quora

10/9/2014
(619) What is the most beautiful word in the English language? - Quora
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What Is the Most

Beautiful X?
What is the most beautiful word in the English

language?
I know Cellar Door is regarded as a beautiful English word in terms of
phonaesthetics rather than semantics, but which other words are beautiful?
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What English words sound beautiful

despite their ugly meanings?
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Shambhavi Tripathi, Hindi is my eternal love.
Facebook
291 upvotes by Zain Faraz, Bharat Kul Ratan, Vivek Sharma, (more)
The following two are my favorite.
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Everytime I see this word it sinks deep inside my heart. 'Saudade' is the
recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought
excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one
live again.
More Related Questions
2. ORENDA
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-beautiful-word-in-the-English-language
1/24
10/9/2014
Or more clearly,
Written 29 Aug.
Upvote 291
Downvote Comments 4+
Virendra Kumar Janghel, childheart <3

564 upvotes by Xu Beixi, Meenakshhi Mishra, Vivek Sharma, (more)
Plenty of awesome words here. Here is bit more, which are not mentioned
till.
1) Curglaff - the physical sensation experienced from diving into cold water.
2) Staycation - at home vacation.
2/24
10/9/2014
3) Agerasia - youthful appearance in an aged person
4) Ataraxia - a pleasure that comes when the mind is at rest.
5) Silhouette - a darkened shape shown as someones portrait.
6) Quatopygia - the enticing movement of a mans or a womans rear end
3/24
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(buttocks)
7) Panacea - an all-healing substance
8) Pareidolia - recognition of images in random patterns
9) Roscid - moist with or as if accompanied by dew
4/24
10/9/2014
1
0) Vorfreude - the intense, anticipative joy derived from imaging future
pleasures.
11) Shangri-la - a blissful place imbued with delight and peace.
12) Tryst - a secretly scheduled meeting of two lovers.
... (more)
Upvote 564
Abhijeet Sinha
1.2k upvotes by Tejasvita Apte, Priyanka Peeramsetty, Prashant Bhutani, (more)
PETRICHOR
5/24
10/9/2014
Petrichor is the aroma of pellucid rain drops falling on dry earth. It is usually
accompanied by the first rain after a long dry patch. It is coined from petra
(stone) + ichor (the ethereal golden fluid that is the blood of Gods or
Written 31 Jul, 2013.immortals).
Upvote 1.2k
Swapnil Phulse, Got my slow-mo specs on...You... (more)

669 upvotes by Aahitagni Mukherjee, Zeeshan Mohammed, Akansha Jawanpuria,
(more)
I came across this word in a documentary

'Life in a Day'-A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that
serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive
on the 24th of July, 2010.
Anyhoo, the word is Mamihlapinatapai
We come across such look/feeling like this every other day. It is so better to
know this word now,isn't it ?
Written 23 May, 2013.

Upvote 669
Downvote Comments 5
6/24
10/9/2014
Bhavesh Mehta, Everything Undefined.
1k upvotes by Sandhya Ramesh, Shalmalee Nath, Sowmya Baskaran, (more)
Waldosia :
a condition characterized by scanning faces in a crowd looking for a specific
person who would have no reason to be there, which is your brains way of
checking to see whether theyre still in your life, subconsciously patting its
emotional pockets before it leaves for the day.
Edit : I have been alluded that this word does not belongs to the true English
Language. Yet..I was not able to find any English counterpart that can express
the idea that this one word does. So Probably its use is totally worth it!!
Updated 31 Jul, 2013.Source : waldosia
Upvote 1k
Meenakshhi Mishra, I am me, no excuses, no regret... (more)

391 upvotes by Xu Beixi, Murali Krishnan, Supreeth Krishnamurthy, (more)
This is one of the most beautiful words I have ever heard. The definition is like
a sad beautiful poem.
The Welsh word hiraeth has no equivalent in English. It often translates as
homesickness, but the actual concept is far more complex, incorporates an
aspect of impossibility: the pining for a home, a figure, even a nation history
that may never have actually existed. To feel hiraeth is to experience a deep
sense of incompleteness tinged with longing. The only living language with an
exact equivalent in Portuguese, through the term saudade, which refers to an
Written 10 Nov, 2013.impossible longing for the unattainable.
Upvote 391
Mohamed Riyaz, Analogue at birth, digital by ... (more)

37 upvotes by Supreeth Krishnamurthy, Shruti Srivastava, David Durham, (more)
Mesmerizing : capture the complete attention of (someone); transfix.
7/24
10/9/2014
Written 15 Nov, 2013.

Upvote 37
Downvote Comment 1
Jatin Bhatia, Carpe diem- Seize the day people!

118 upvotes by Xu Beixi, Guru Pratap, Abhishek Mantha, (more)
Nyctophilia: love of darkness or night. Finding relaxation or comfort in the

darkness
Written 18 Nov, 2013.

Upvote 118
Shreya Bhowmick, Always the ugly duckling, neve... (more)

103 upvotes by Amar Prabhu, AM Guerrero, Sharad Rana, (more)
There are several words, some beautiful cause of phonaesthetics, some

beautiful cause of semantics. However, few of my personal favourites are listed
below.
i.
Transcendence
Meaning : Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme. Lying beyond the
ordinary range of perception. Intangible.
ii.
Alchemy
Meaning : A process by which paradoxical results are achieved or incompatible

elements combined with no obvious rational explanation. An alternative (and
rather old meaning suggests that Alchemy indicates the process by which
matter is transformed to Gold.)
8/24
10/9/2014
iii.
Elixir
Meaning : Something that can heal dying wounds and give eternal life. Panacea
is almost similar.
iv.
Evanescence
Meaning : The event of fading and gradually vanishing from sight, like mist.
v.
Solitude
Meaning : The state or quality of being alone or remote from others. (the word
is as beautiful and profound as its meaning)
vi.
Finesse
Meaning : Do (something) in a subtle and delicate manner.
vii.
Panache
Meaning : Flamboyant confidence of style or manner.
viii.
Ubiquitous
Meaning : omnipresent
ix.
Iridescent
Meaning : Showing luminous colors that seem to change when seen from
different angles.
x.
Chutzpah
Meaning : Utter nerve; effrontery
xi.
Vox Populi (loanword)
Meaning : The opinions or beliefs of the majority. (I absolutely love to

pronounce this word!)
Few words I love just are : Kaleidoscope, Aubergine, Turquoise, Baba

Ghanoush, Nefarious, Vendetta, Mystic, Melancholy etc.
Written 23 Nov, 2012..

Upvote 103
Downvote Comments 3
Mandeep Singh Grang, Librocubicularist, Bibliobibul... (more)

214 upvotes by Biju V. Dev, Kaushik Chakraborty, Shivam Agrawal, (more)
STARTLING! ... indeed.
9/24
10/9/2014
Written 24 Nov, 2013.via Grammarly

Upvote 214
Surabhi Sinha
144 upvotes by Zeeshan Mohammed, Rishi Jain, Vani Sivasankar, (more)
adronitis
n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someonespending the
first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent
conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the
center of the housewishing instead that you could start there and work your
way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness,
until you've built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where theyre
Written 19 Jul, 2013.from, and what they do for a living.
Upvote 144
Apala Chaturvedi, loves alphabet soup

37 upvotes by Sana Khan, Rahul Hor, Ashutosh Pandey, (more)
I wonder if these have been mentioned:

la gaudire
n. the glint of goodness inside people, which you can only find by
sloshing them back and forth in your mind until everything dark
and gray and common falls away, leaving behind a constellation
at the bottom of the pana rare element trapped in exposed
bedrock, washed there by a storm somewhere upstream.
kairosclerosis
n. the moment you realize that youre currently happy
consciously trying to savor the feelingwhich prompts your
intellect to identify it, pick it apart and put it in context, where
it will slowly dissolve until its little more than an aftertaste.
10/24
10/9/2014
This one in particular is hauntingly beautiful, a word describing life passing

you by.
Also:
anecdoche
n. a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is
listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of
Scrabble, with each player borrowing bits of other anecdotes as a
way to increase their own score, until we all run out of things to
Written 18 Dec, 2013.say.
Upvote 37
Kalpana Mangal
61 upvotes by Ankush Saxena, Sukhamrit Singh, Dhruv Ringe, (more)
I love this word

Ephemeral
Adjective
Lasting for a very short time
Synonyms
transitory - transient - momentary - short-lived
Written 27 Jul, 2013.This small word reflects the true essence of life..
Upvote 61
Downvote Comment 1
Ashton Anderson
243 upvotes by Meenakshhi Mishra, Raj Reddy, Jens Wuerfel, (more)
My favourite word, by far, is syzygy. It's a triple threat:

Sound: say it out loud: syzygy. Sizz-uh-gee. Sizz uh gee, sizz uh gee, sizz uh
gee. It rolls off the tongue beautifully.
Appearance: it looks so cool! Check out those alternating y's. Three vowels,
all of them y's, all different sounds.
Meaning: Of course, any candidate for "most beautiful word" must also
have a great meaning, and here syzygy again delivers. Its primary meaning is
"an alignment of heavenly bodies", for example during an eclipse. But it has
generalized to also mean a greater harmony or unity. It also has some other
great jargon-y meanings, for example in Jung's theories it refers to an
"archetypal pairing of contrasexual opposites".
Written 6 May, 2011.
Upvote 243
Prabhat Mishra, biotechnologist

52 upvotes by Nancy Maria, Guru Pratap, Colin Heng, (more)
11/24
10/9/2014
Written 14 Sep, 2013.

Upvote 52
Downvote Comment
Sanjay Verma, Proud to be a ISMite

44 upvotes by Zeeshan Mohammed, Arijit Paladhi, Mohit Sharma, (more)
gnossienne - (n). a moment of awareness that someone youve known for

years still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the
hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway
leading to a wing of the house that youve never fully exploredan unfinished
attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately
neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly
Written 7 Jun, 2013.where you stand.
Upvote 44
Downvote Comment 1
Ankita Keshari, ECE Undergrad.

32 upvotes by Rupal Moharana, Shikha Bordia, Emma Kinsey, (more)
Phosphenes n.
The stars and colours you see when you rub your eyes.
12/24
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kalon (n.)
Beauty that is more than skin deep.
Written 24 Mar.
Upvote 32
Downvote Comment 1
Shuchita Sharma
50 upvotes by Shubham Mishra, Prasanna Vengatesan, Steve Black, (more)
13/24
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Written 27 May.
Upvote 50
Downvote Comments 2
Pawan Burnwal, Suffering from Wanderlust

69 upvotes by Shruti Srivastava, Varun Pinnamaneni, Philipp Basilchanko, (more)
14/24
10/9/2014
Because it describes me. I love spending time with myself and pondering over
Updated 28 Jan.my thoughts or reading a book.
Upvote 69
Ashwani Roy, I think my Karma just ran over... (more)

48 upvotes by Nikhil Kanakamedala, Prosenjit Bhattacharya, Serra Winski, (more)
Oxford Comma.
It is actually a punctuation mark, a comma placed immediately before the
coordinating conjunction (usually and,or, or nor) in a series of three or more
terms.
For example, a list of three countries should be punctuated as "Portugal, Spain,
and France", where the comma following Spain is the Oxford comma. There
are contrasting opinions among the writers about its use. And I really don't
come across its usage often.
Here's an example exhibiting the significance of the Oxford comma.
Written 24 Feb.
Upvote 48
Anonymous
224 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Erica Friedman, Aditya Sengupta, (more)
Serendipity.
15/24
10/9/2014
For the way it flows in the beginning and becomes staccato at the end. For its
seemingly complex yet in the end simple nature. And for its positive and
uplifting meaning for randomness -- discovering something by accident,
Written 28 Jun, 2010.whether in friendship, love, work, or otherwise.
Upvote 224
Shri Aravinth, Daydreamer,Socially awkward

32 upvotes by Kelly Erickson, Nancy Maria, Jenil Shah, (more)
vellichor
n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with
the passage of timefilled with thousands of old books youll never have time
to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and
papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex
littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured
Written 17 Aug, 2013.
Upvote 32
Downvote Comment
Sakshi Bist, Loving from a distance:)

40 upvotes by Rupal Moharana, Shruti Srivastava, Nandini Godhuma, (more)
apricity:~ the warmth of sun in winter~
Written 31 Mar.
Upvote 40
Downvote Comment 1
Kanishka Ganguly, Curious, Inquisitive, Quizzer,... (more)

26 upvotes by Nancy Maria, Deepika Pandit, Bheshaj Joshi, (more)
Aphasia To describe that feeling when you know a word but it just won't come out.
Written 10 Sep, 2013."Tip-of-the-tongue" feeling.
Upvote 26
Downvote Comments 4
Shiva Suri, avid Quoran

21 upvotes by Sujaan Choksi, Sahil Kukreja, Bheshaj Joshi, (more)
Sonder:
n. the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and
complex as your own populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines,
worries and inherited craziness an epic story that continues invisibly around
you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to
thousands of other lives that youll never know existed, in which you might
appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of
traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
Source:http://www.dictionaryofobscureso...
Note: I realise this is not a 'real' English word, but I believe repeated usage will
Written 8 Aug, 2013.make it one.
Upvote 21
Downvote Comment
16/24
10/9/2014
Chirayu Akotiya, Startup Enthusiast, Conscienti... (more)
21 upvotes by Nikhil Kanakamedala, Deepika Pandit, Raghu Amaresh, (more)
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Written 27 Oct, 2013.
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Li Pi, Software Engineer at Facebook

120 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Meenakshhi Mishra, Will Wister, (more)
Penumbra.
In the strictest sense, it means the area half shaded - that area between where
light shines and where full shadows are cast.
But in the metaphorical sense, it represents much more. Legally, its the area
where a piece of legislation has no clearly defined meaning. It's the grey zone.
It represents complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty. It defines something
imperfect, marginal, or shadowy.
But as a word? It's smooth, simple, and easy to say - the antithesis of its
Written 10 Jul, 2011.definition.
Upvote 120
Sarah Brown, Student, writer, designer, dreamer

24 upvotes by Dinesh Ram, Kedar Kholiya, Sunny Kumar, (more)
21/24
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Written 16 Jul.I'll update this as I think of more(:

Upvote 24
Downvote Comment
Jeannette Pepin, Linux Geek

32 upvotes by Amy Zhou, Smarak Maity, David Durham, (more)
Twelfth.
I love the whimsical sound of the first four phonemes, and then how difficult
the consonant cluster at the end is--how it makes you transition from your
tongue at the alveolar ridge (/l/) to your lips on your teeth (/f/), and then
Written 7 May, 2013.tongue to teeth for the last phoneme (//).
Upvote 32
Vivek Sharma, Quoranstein / Quora ID : 16851188

19 upvotes by Aditya Gupta, Kedar Kholiya, Dheeraj Nahata, (more)
Written 11 May.The meaning is in contrast with how beautiful this word sounds.
Upvote 19
Downvote Comments 2
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What Is the Most

What is the most beautiful word in the English

Following Question 984

There's more on Quora...

Cannot write an answer at this time.

What English words sound beautiful

Shambhavi Tripathi, Hindi is my eternal love.

The following two are my favorite.

What is the ugliest word in the English

Latest activity: 3am

What are the top 100 most beautiful

More Related Questions

Virendra Kumar Janghel, childheart <3

2) Staycation - at home vacation.

3) Agerasia - youthful appearance in an aged person

4) Ataraxia - a pleasure that comes when the mind is at rest.

5) Silhouette - a darkened shape shown as someones portrait.

6) Quatopygia - the enticing movement of a mans or a womans rear end

7) Panacea - an all-healing substance

8) Pareidolia - recognition of images in random patterns

9) Roscid - moist with or as if accompanied by dew

11) Shangri-la - a blissful place imbued with delight and peace.

12) Tryst - a secretly scheduled meeting of two lovers.

Downvote Comments 14+

Swapnil Phulse, Got my slow-mo specs on...You... (more)

I came across this word in a documentary

Written 23 May, 2013.

Meenakshhi Mishra, I am me, no excuses, no regret... (more)

Mohamed Riyaz, Analogue at birth, digital by ... (more)

Mesmerizing : capture the complete attention of (someone); transfix.

Written 15 Nov, 2013.

Jatin Bhatia, Carpe diem- Seize the day people!

Nyctophilia: love of darkness or night. Finding relaxation or comfort in the

Written 18 Nov, 2013.

Shreya Bhowmick, Always the ugly duckling, neve... (more)

There are several words, some beautiful cause of phonaesthetics, some

Meaning : A process by which paradoxical results are achieved or incompatible

Meaning : Do (something) in a subtle and delicate manner.

Meaning : Flamboyant confidence of style or manner.

Meaning : Utter nerve; effrontery

Vox Populi (loanword)

Meaning : The opinions or beliefs of the majority. (I absolutely love to

Few words I love just are : Kaleidoscope, Aubergine, Turquoise, Baba

Written 23 Nov, 2012..

Mandeep Singh Grang, Librocubicularist, Bibliobibul... (more)

STARTLING! ... indeed.

Written 24 Nov, 2013.via Grammarly

Apala Chaturvedi, loves alphabet soup

I wonder if these have been mentioned:

This one in particular is hauntingly beautiful, a word describing life passing

I love this word

My favourite word, by far, is syzygy. It's a triple threat:

Prabhat Mishra, biotechnologist

Written 14 Sep, 2013.

Sanjay Verma, Proud to be a ISMite

gnossienne - (n). a moment of awareness that someone youve known for

Ankita Keshari, ECE Undergrad.

Pawan Burnwal, Suffering from Wanderlust

Ashwani Roy, I think my Karma just ran over... (more)

Shri Aravinth, Daydreamer,Socially awkward

Sakshi Bist, Loving from a distance:)