Synonyms

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Beauty is commonly defined as a characteristic present in a person, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction to the mind or to the eyes, arising from sensory manifestations such as a shape, color, personality, sound, design or rhythm. Beauty is studied as part of Aesthetics, Sociology, Social Psychology and Culture. Beauty, as a cultural creation, is also extremely commercialized. Beauty is a common form of chemistry, mixing chemicals together to create the perfect element. This contrast when bauty can be inner beauty, when one expresses deep sense of self.

The subjective experience of "beauty" often involves the interpretation of some entity as being in balance and harmony with nature, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a common phrase attributed to this concept.

In its most profound sense, beauty may engender a salient experience of positive reflection about the meaning of one's own existence. An "object of beauty" is anything that reveals or resonates with personal meaning. Hence religious and moral teachings often focus on the divinity and virtue of beauty, and to assert natural beauty as an aspect of a spirituality and truth.

Aesthetics

Understanding the nature and meaning of one of the key themes in the philosophical discipline known as aesthetics. The composer and critic Robert Schumann distinguished between two kinds of beauty, natural and poetic. The former is found in the contemplation of nature, whereas the latter lies in man's conscious, creative intervention into nature. Schumann indicated that in music, or other art, both kinds of beauty appear, but natural beauty is merely sensual delight. Poetic beauty begins where the natural beauty leaves off.

A common idea suggests that beauty exists in the appearance of things and people that are good. A good apple will be perceived as more beautiful than a bruised one. Also, most people judge physically attractive human beings to be good, both physically and on a deeper level. Specifically, they are believed to possess a variety of positive traits and personality characteristics.

The stereotype, "beauty is good" has many significant counter examples. These include such things as a glacier, or a ruggedly dry desert mountain range. Many people find beauty in hostile nature, but this can be bad, or at least unrelated to any sense of goodness. Another type of counterexample are comic or sarcastic works of art, which can be good, but are rarely beautiful. Additionally, people may be good and not beautiful, or beautiful but not good.

Further, people's skills can develop and change their sense of beauty. Carpenters may view an out-of-true building as ugly, and many master carpenters can see out-of-true angles as small as half a degree. Many musicians can likewise hear as dissonant a tone that's high or low by as little as two percent of the distance to the next note. Most people have similar aesthetics about the work or hobbies they've mastered.

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Antonym: Sense 1
beautiful (vs. ugly) -- (delighting the senses or exciting intellectual or emotional admiration; "a beautiful child"; "beautiful country"; "a beautiful painting"; "a beautiful theory"; "a beautiful party")

ugly (vs. beautiful) -- (displeasing to the senses; "an ugly face"; "ugly furniture")
=> disfigured -- (having the appearance spoiled; "a disfigured face"; "strip mining left a disfigured landscape")
=> evil-looking -- (having an evil appearance)
=> fugly -- ((slang) extremely ugly)
=> grotesque, monstrous, unnatural -- (distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous; "tales of grotesque serpents eight fathoms long that churned the seas"; "twisted into monstrous shapes")
=> hideous, repulsive -- (so extremely ugly as to be terrifying; "a hideous scar"; "a repulsive mask")
=> ill-favored, ill-favoured -- (usually used of a face; "an ill-favored countenance")
=> scrofulous -- (having a diseased appearance resembling scrofula; "our canoe...lay with her scrofulous sides on the shore"- Farley Mowat)
=> unlovely, unpicturesque -- (without beauty or charm)
=> unsightly -- (unpleasant to look at; "unsightly billboards")

Sense 2
beautiful -- (aesthetically pleasing)

INDIRECT (VIA aesthetic) -> inaesthetic, unaesthetic -- (violating aesthetic canons or requirements; deficient in tastefulness or beauty; "inaesthetic and quite unintellectual"; "peered through those inaesthetic spectacles")

Sense 3
beautiful -- ((of weather) highly enjoyable; "what a beautiful day")

INDIRECT (VIA pleasant) -> unpleasant -- (disagreeable to the senses, to the mind, or feelings ; "an unpleasant personality"; "unpleasant repercussions"; "unpleasant odors")