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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Full of love; loving.
  2. adj. Inspiring love or affection.
  3. adj. Having beauty that appeals to the emotions as well as to the eye. See Synonyms at beautiful.
  4. adj. Enjoyable; delightful.
  5. n. A beautiful person, especially a woman.
  6. n. A lovely object.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Fitted to excite love or emotion; possessing or characterized by engaging qualities; lovable; attractive; charming: as, a lovely woman; a lovely view; a lovely dress.
  2. Attractive to appetite or desire; enticing; inviting.
  3. Loving; tender.
  4. Synonyms Amiable, Lovely (see quotation from Archbishop Trench under amiable); Handsome, Pretty, etc. (see beautiful); pleasing, charming, fair.
  5. So as to induce or excite love; very beautifully or pleasantly.
  6. Lovingly; kindly.
  7. Worthy to be praised.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Inspiring actual love
  2. adj. Evoking love-like, happy emotions by aesthetic or similar endearing qualities.
  3. adj. Very nice, wonderful in a general sense.
  4. adj. Loving, filled with love
  5. n. An attractive, lovely person, especially a (professional) beauty.
  6. n. A lovely object

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Having such an appearance as excites, or is fitted to excite, love; beautiful; charming; very pleasing in form, looks, tone, or manner.
  2. adj. Lovable; amiable; having qualities of any kind which excite, or are fitted to excite, love or friendship.
  3. adj. Loving; tender.
  4. adj. Very pleasing; -- applied loosely to almost anything which is not grand or merely pretty
  5. adv. In a manner to please, or to excite love.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. lovable especially in a childlike or naive way
  2. n. a very pretty girl who works as a photographer's model
  3. adj. appealing to the emotions as well as the eye

Examples

  • “To hear that lovely voice, for I do her justice, and there are lovely notes in her voice, _lovely_, to hear that voice shrieking and screaming away, in what she called the great scene, was simply pitiful.”

    Queen Lucia

  • “How lovely -- how _lovely_ you are!" he exclaimed, almost under his breath.”

    Robin

  • “Ah! mammy," she exclaimed more than once, "what a lovely, _lovely_ home! how happy we might be here!”

    Holidays at Roselands

  • “Betty finally hit the jackpot with a lovely (or should I say $lovely$) man and she fucking blew it away!”

    Bryanboy.com

  • “Oh, what a lovely, _lovely_ house!" cried Sprite, "and what a dear place to live in.”

    Princess Polly's Gay Winter

  • “And your mouth -- so sweet and sad -- but, what a lovely, _lovely_ smile! ”

    Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise, Volume I

  • “We're always tempted to use the phrase "lovely in lavender," and Mila Kunis might have been just that at Sunday night's Oscars.”

    The Huffington Post: Mila Kunis At The 2011 Oscars: Hit Or Miss? (PHOTOS, POLL)

  • “They used the word lovely to describe everything from fried rice to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.”

    Simon & Schuster: Heaven Lake

  • “He said he was attending a football game between his university and Ohio University, and he mistakenly followed what he called a lovely group of women into an all-female dormitory.”

    CNN Transcript Oct 15, 2008

  • “That's what I call a lovely dessert, tailor made for Valentine day!”

    As pure as your love...

Show 10 more examples...

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘lovely’.

Comments

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  • Ed_Jogg Nailed it! frindley:) Feb 10, 2011

  • mayline974 i like it^^ Aug 6, 2009

  • frindley "Love-ly,
    All I am is lovely.
    Lovely is the one thing I can do.

    Winsome,
    What I am is winsome,
    Radiant as in some
    Dream come true.

    Oh, isn't it a shame?
    I can neither sew
    Nor cook
    Nor read or write my name.
    But I'm happy
    Merely being lovely,
    For it's one thing I can give to you."

    lyric from Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Apr 19, 2008

‘lovely’ has been looked up 3554 times, loved by 12 people, added to 87 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 12.