cute

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   attractive especially by means of smallness or prettiness or quaintness

   a cute kid with pigtails

2. 2
   adj

   Possessing physical features, behaviors, personality traits or other properties that are mainly attributed to infants and small or cuddly animals; e.g. fair, dainty, round, and soft physical features, disproportionately large eyes and head, playfulness, fragility, helplessness, curiosity or shyness, innocence, affectionate behavior.

   Our reaction to cute attributes is understood as the way nature ensures mammals care for their young.

3. 3
   adj

   Lovable, charming, attractive or pleasing, especially in a youthful, dainty, quaint or fun-spirited way.

   Let's go to the mall and look for cute girls.

4. 4
   adj

   Sexually attractive or pleasing; gorgeous.

   He's got such cute buns.

5. 5
   adj

   Affected or contrived to charm; mincingly clever; precious; cutesy.

   The actor's performance was too cute for me. All that mugging to the audience killed the humor.

6. 6
   adj

   Mentally keen or discerning (See also acute)

   Then Turpin being so very cute, He hid his money in his boot.

7. 7
   adj

   Evincing cleverness; surprising in its elegance or unconventionality (but of limited importance).

   There's a cute alternative proof of this using lambda calculus.

8. 8
   adj

   obviously contrived to charm

Etymology

Aphetic form of acute, originally meaning “keenly perceptive or discerning, shrewd” (1731). Meaning transferred to “pretty, fetching” by US students (slang) c. 1834. Meaning drifted further to describe the pleasing attraction to features usually possessed by the young.