belle

C2+ Topic:Describing Qualities

US /bɛl/ UK /bɛl/ See IPA manual

Homophones

bell /bɛl/

Minimal pairs

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

noun

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

Etymology

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

belle Old English bellus Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Describing Qualities

# 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
- Describing Qualities

markdown

belle

Meanings

Thesaurus

Etymology

Topics

Keyboard Shortcuts

General

Send feedback