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Pulchritude

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TomKane

TomKane

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Jul 24, 2001
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I was walking through town one day when I was approached by a man who made me a bet.

He said, "Give me a letter in the alphabet and I'll come up with a word - if you know what it means then I'll buy you a drink - if you don't then maybe you can give me some spare change."

I said, "Hmmmmm how about 'P'?"

He said, "Pulchritude."

I said, "Huh?"

He said, "It means beauty."

I looked it up and he was dead right! Can't imagine using it but am happy my vocabulary has improved!
 
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so you gave him a spare change.. hehehe... I knew that word!

Chacal, Inc.[wavey]
 
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I always thought 'pulchritude' sounded like something rotting or rotten, so to my mind it sounds weird when the definition is 'beauty'!

Just thought I'd share that. I wonder where the word comes from?
 
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Like many words, it comes form Latin. In this case, it's pulcher which means beauty.

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bekibutton,

I'm with you. It always seems like an ugly word to describe beauty. That’s probably because it sounds like putrid. I assume I learned the word putrid first, forming an unpleasant association with the sound of it.

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When I was in Junior High, I was really big into reading westerns. My grandfather got me hooked on them. The author Zane Grey always used pulchritude to describe the heroine of his books. I had to look it up the first time I saw it. After that, it always made an appearance in any short story I had to write in school.
 
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Oh, goodness gracious! like we have not enough words to be confused already!!! :-D
 
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I am confused too [bigsmile], because in Spanish there is the noun pulcritud which, as CajunCenturion posted, comes from Latin pulchritudo, pulcher, but it also means neatness, tidiness, cleanliness (of language), or honesty (of conduct).

The Spanish adjective form pulcro -which is translated to English careful rather than beautiful- describes someone who is very concerned about his/her appearance, or is very careful (neat and tidy) in the way to do something. The English adjective form is pulchritudinous, which I doubt many people would take as a compliment. Interesting.
 
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Rambler,

I'm confused. The link you provided offers the definition "That quality of appearance which pleases the eye; beauty; comeliness; grace; loveliness".

How would that not be considered a compliment? (Except in the third example on that page which reads, "Where Linda has her infectious charm, Polly has only her empty pulchritude.")

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>How would that not be considered a compliment?

Because it doesn't sound good and it is obscure to some degree. Why don't you try it?

- Darling, you are so pulchritudinous to me...

and tell us what happened. Personally, I will avoid the use of that word. And maybe callipygian too! I can't believe what I am learning here. ;-)
 
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Have to say it many enough times to make it 'your own' (yes I watch American Idol)and than say it, not right away...could pass well as a compliment.
pulchritudinous pulchritudinous pulchritudinous pulchritudinous pulchritudinous pulchritudinous pulchritudinous pulchritudinous pulchritudinous
 
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I've never had a problem with the word. But then, I've known it's meaning so long I no longer remember when I learned it.

I rarely hear the word used any more, except in situations where someone is using it for the purposes of deliberate alliteration, such as describing a woman as: "Penelope, that perfect paragon of pulchritude"

I guess it's also possible to use the word to win a bet.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!
 
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Maybe when allowing your significant other to enter a room before you, bowing: "After you, my Pulchritudinous!"

Sweet.


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>Have to say it many enough times to make it 'your own'

Thanks for the advice, I will also try handwriting it many times, "because you absorb information better when you actually write it down", instead of using CTRL-C, CTRL-V.


 
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Here is just one of those words that was fairly common years ago and is rarely used anymore in conversation. It is still common in literature when describing a beautiful woman. I wonder why so many interesting words like pulchritude disappear to be replaced with words like hottie and phat. Pulchritude is some much more elegant in my opinion.
 
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One of the many dopey things I am fond of saying is, "I was befuddled by your beauty." Usually I say it in response to my wife's accusation that I wasn't listening to her (when I clearly wasn't).

Tonight I tried, "I was made vertiginous by your pulchritude." but it wasn't nearly as much fun.
 
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blutekhnd

Have you noticed that when an 'interesting' word is replaced with another it is usually a case of a multisyllabic word being replaced by a monosyllabic word?

Whether this is related to a general dumbing down in education or a desire to live more speedily than in the past - I don't know.

It is probably a learned behavior rather than a sign of brain dysfunction - I knew some otherwise unremarkable children who would delight in remembering words such as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis for no apparent reason other than that they could.
 
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SteveGlo,

Personally, I place a good portion of the blame on the education system. When I was in grade school, we always had a weekly vocabulary list that we had to learn to spell and the definition of the word. My niece and nephews have never had a vocabulary list. In their early years, they have had spelling, but that's just your basic garden variety cat, dog, cow type of words. So the students are never exposed to cool sounding words.

At least not until they have to prepare for their college entrance exams. Then they need to buy study guides and attend special prep courses because their school failed to prepare them.

 
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I keep waiting for a beauty parlor to open up with the name "Bower of Pulchritude".

(I get tired of all the plays on words like "cut" and "snip")

Chip H.


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