belle

C2+ Topic:People & Society

US /bɛl/ UK /bɛl/ See IPA manual

Homophones

bell /bɛl/

Minimal pairs

Sounds like bail /ɛ/ vs /eɪ/ Sounds like bale /ɛ/ vs /eɪ/

Meanings

1

noun
a beautiful woman, especially the most admired at an event

She was the undisputed belle of the ball that night.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a beautiful woman,... beauty goddess stunner

Word family

Related forms beau beauty embellish

Simplified etymology

Belle has been used in English since the Middle English period and ultimately derives from Latin bellus, “beautiful.” It shares this source with beauty and beau.

Etymology

From French belle ('beautiful woman'), feminine of beau, from Latin bellus ('pretty, handsome').

belle Old English bellus Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society

External links

# belle

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /bɛl/
**IPA (UK):** /bɛl/

## Meanings
1. a beautiful woman, especially the most admired at an event

## Examples
- She was the undisputed belle of the ball that night.

## Synonyms
- beauty
- goddess
- stunner

## Related Forms
- beau
- beauty
- embellish

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: belle
- Root: bellus

## Etymology
From French belle ('beautiful woman'), feminine of beau, from Latin bellus ('pretty, handsome').

## AI Etymology
Belle comes from French belle ('beautiful woman'), feminine of beau, from Latin bellus ('pretty, handsome'). The historical trail runs through belle in French and bellus in Latin. Used as a noun, belle now means "a beautiful woman, especially the most admired at an event", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in related forms such as beau, beauty, and embellish. The result is a borrowed or transmitted form whose modern spelling carries a compact record of its route into English.

## Topics
- People & Society

markdown