Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Dazzlingly beautiful or magnificent: wore a gorgeous Victorian gown.
- adj. Characterized by magnificence or virtuosic brilliance: the pianist's gorgeous technique.
- adj. Informal Wonderful; delightful.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Sumptuously adorned; superbly showy; resplendent; magnificent.
- Inclined to splendor; given to gorgeousness.
- Synonyms Superb, brilliant, dazzling; rich, costly.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Imposing through splendid or various colors; showy; fine; magnificent.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. dazzlingly beautiful
Etymologies
- From Early Modern English gorgious, gorgeouse, from Middle French gorgias ("elegant, fashionable"), from Old French gourgias, gorgias ("gorgeous, gaudy, flaunting, gallant, fine"), of uncertain formation, but apparently connected with Old French gorgias ("a gorget, ruffle for the neck"), from Old French gorge ("bosom, throat"); see gorge. Sense evolution was probably that of "swelling of the throat or bosom due to pride, bridling up" to "assume an air of importance, flaunting". (Wiktionary)
- Middle English gorgeouse, probably from Old French gorgias, jewelry-loving, elegant, from gorge, throat; see gorge. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Among the photo optimizations, the software giant has increased the display size of the thumbnails, made it possible for users to order photo prints from the service, offered people tags and what it referred to as a gorgeous online slide show.”
“Quercus has several titles due out: If the Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr, a new Bernie Gunther novel (£17.99), Bones of Betrayal by Jefferson Bass (£12.99), and a reissue of David Pearce's 1974 and 1977 (£12.99 each), in "gorgeous" hardback editions.”
“Especially since I keep being lucky enough to see him in gorgeous worn old 19th century music halls with even more gorgeous acoustics.”
“For almost 20 years, I was fortunate enough to correspond via snail mail with a terrifically gifted artist friend who liberally illustrated his letters (written in gorgeous cursive, too) with wonderful sketches of whatever he was writing about -- needless to say, I treasure them (alas, we mostly talk on the phone now).”
“For what was dubbed the Nintendo World Championships, 116 competition game cartridges were made, 90 being grey versions and 26 in gorgeous gold for the winners.”
Bleep, Bleep. Bloop, Bloop. Video Games. « Giant Killer Squid - Film, Comics, News, Reviews and more
“Now I only have to await his taste in gorgeous swimsuits, which I hope is better than the summer shirts he materialised in a few years ago!”
The Autobiography of Mister Litlove « Tales from the Reading Room
“As always, I was drawn to the glamorous young women in gorgeous costumes -- who could hold their own in a rumble with the rival kung fu school!”
“That paper which makes the artwork looks absolutely gorgeous is the one that should be used.”
“After what seems like an eternal vacation in gorgeous Denver, I am writing to you from gate B37 of the Denver International Airport.”
“Our team has been centralized in gorgeous Blaine, Minn. since tryouts in August.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gorgeous’.
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Beautiful and Ugly
Beautiful, attractive, well-formed
Ugly, unattractive, malformedadorable, alluring, angelic, appealing, appetizing, attractive, beaming, beauteous, beautiful, becoming, beguiling, bewitching and 180 more...
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Fairylike
fairylike, enchanted, pixieish, pixyish, impish, mischievous, fluttery, magical, bewitching, enchanting, fey, otherworldly and 126 more...
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Adjectives
sagacious, average, angry, mad, crazy, giant, ugly, pretty, happy, sad, lonely, solitary and 119 more...
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You are so GOOD LOOKING!
Words about looking good
a dish, dishy, snazzy, styling, looker, handsome, beautiful, delicious, dessert, yummy, tantalizing, hormone hunk and 55 more...
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Insult me, slangly
muggins, fathead, jackass, twat, fuckstick, craptastick, dumbfuck, asshole, asshat, gorgeous, intelligent, brainiac and 3 more...
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Gee, that's hard and soft!
Words that contain both a "hard G" and a "soft G".
gauge, garage, gorge, gorgeous, gigantic, grudge, glurge, begrudge, garbage, grunge, engage, disgorge and 24 more...
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Her
beautiful, lovely, magnificent, exquisite, marvelous, charming, delicate, delightful, elegant, divine, resplendant, radiant and 6 more...
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Sophaloaf's list
Favorites!
belle, starfish, photography, buddha, dinosaur, floccinaucinihili..., hypoallergenic, sailor, gorgeous, adhesive, imagination, artichokes and 55 more...
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Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Or honey, or baby, or ...
(A Valentine's Day list.)amoret, bonnilasse, ladybird, leikin, leman, love-lass, Phyllis, pout, sweetness, munchkin, darling, sayang and 87 more...
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Words of Praise
Please contribute lots of panegyrical words—preferably such that are of universal use.
gorgeous, flamboyant, grand, magnificent, iridescent, incandescent, splendorous, coruscating, immaculate, magniloquent, sublime, scintillating and 33 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 3027 more... -
BuffaloBen's Words
sycamore, wipfel, rohlingsspindel, gorgeous, flamboyance, anschmiegen, pengpeng, zuckerhut, revolver, troubleshooter, breeze, dandy and 228 more...
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Adjectives ending with ous
facetious, ambidextrous, glamourous, ridiculous, humorous, luminous, ubiquitous, gorgeous, precious, jealous
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G
game, garden, goblin, ghost, ghoul, god, gloom, grim, gift, grow, germ, green and 20 more...
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Descriptive
The present, the future. Goals, wishes, hopes.
capricious, sericeous, sleek, flawless, charming, skilled, long-haired, versatile, beautiful, witty, fair, thin and 145 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gorgeous.
xxshweethartxx LOVE the pronunciation... hilarious!!!! Apr 1, 2010
bilby Not I. Jul 22, 2009
sionnach When I was growing up, it was a mantra in our family that "you should never say gorgeous, if referring to food". Has anyone else ever heard this? Jul 22, 2009
kobnata actually the root gorge= also means the mountainous region.. but the true story of the word 'gorgeous' comes to us from the word GURJI (Persians and later Turks call Gurji -Georgian people.. who were considered the most beautiful people.. and every beautiful women were called a 'gurji' from here - gorgeous.
Also i as a Georgian:-) should mention here another well known and widely term - the "Caucasian" - the race classification of white European people were called after Georgian people..by the founder of Anthropology –Blumenbach ‘after deciding that a skull of a Georgian woman was the most beautiful he had ever seen’.
Apr 1, 2007
kingrat47 I find it funny that a word meaning "surpassingly beautiful" has gorge as its root, given that the only time anyone uses the word gorge in that sense today is talking about vomiting. Dec 10, 2006