lovely

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Delightful for beauty, harmony, or grace.

   It's a lovely day and the sun is shining.

2. 2
   adj

   Nice; wonderful.

   It would be lovely to have a little more money to spend.

3. 3
   adj

   Inspiring love or friendship; amiable.

   a most lovely gentlemanlike man

4. 4
   adj

   Loving, filled with love.

   seal the title with a lovely kiss

5. 5
   noun

   An attractive, lovely person, especially a (professional) beauty.

   a calendar depicting young lovelies in bikinis

6. 6
   noun

   Term of fond address.

   Goodbye, my lovely.

7. 7
   noun

   A lovely object.

   In Montréal, the summer months bring in a huge variety of fruits and vegetables and this is the time to preserve them. Preserving can also refer to the storage of these fiber and vitamin rich lovelies.

8. 8
   adv

   In a lovely fashion or manner; beautifully.

   She's not everyone's cup of tea, what with the way she speaks her mind and doesn't always do her hair in the morning, but she scrubs up lovely.

Etymology

From Middle English lofly, lovely (“praiseworthy; laudatory”), equivalent to lofe + -ly. Cognate with Dutch loffelijk (“laudable, praiseworthy”), German löblich (“commendable, laudable, praiseworthy”), Swedish lovlig (“permissible”). More at lofe, love.