beauties

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of beauty.

   The auction featured several antique beauties from the 1920s.

   Photographers travel for miles to capture the natural beauties of the canyon.

   Note

   The plural opens up the countable uses of beauty. The quality itself is uncountable, so beauties always means particular things: beautiful people, the features that make a place lovely (the beauties of the canyon), or fine specimens, like an auction's antique beauties. The countable use can also turn ironic, because a beauty may be an egregious example as easily as an excellent one. The spelling follows the consonant-plus-y rule: beauty, beauties.

2. 2
   verbobsolete

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of beauty. Obsolete.

   Note

   The verb behind this form, beauty meaning "to make beautiful," is obsolete. It always took a direct object: a mural beauties a wall. Because it is spelled exactly like the everyday plural noun, a modern reader will almost always take it as the noun first. In current writing it therefore reads as a deliberate archaism, and it is safest used where that old-fashioned effect is wanted.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2