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cute. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
cute, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
cute in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
cute you have here. The definition of the word
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cute, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
English
Etymology
Aphetic form of acute, originally “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.
Pronunciation
Adjective
cute (comparative cuter, superlative cutest)
- 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.
- 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.
- Sexually attractive or pleasing; gorgeous.
2010, Vernon J. Geberth, Sex-Related Homicide and Death Investigation, page 116:I ordered her to strip for me and made her wiggle her cute little ass as she took off her panties.
- 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.
Don't get cute with me, boy!
1957 May, William P. McGivern, Alfred Hitchcock's Suspense Magazine, page 102, column 2:"This time we aren't interested in anything cute or cryptic. We want the truth."
- Mentally keen or discerning (See also acute)
- Synonyms: clever, shrewd
- ca. 1850. Anonymous, "Turpin Hero" (broadside ballad, probably originally dating to 18th century)
- Then Turpin being so very cute,
He hid his money in his boot.
1908, Winston Churchill, Letter to his fianceé Clementine:'Filled with old doddering peers, cute financial magnates, clever wirepullers, big brewers with bulbous noses. All the enemies of progress are there — weaklings, sleek, slug, comfortable, self-important individuals.
Cute trick, but can you do it consistently?
- (especially mathematics) Evincing cleverness; surprising in its elegance or unconventionality (but of limited importance).
There's a cute alternative proof of this using lambda calculus.
1963, The Tablet, volume 217:Cute solution to pin one Knight by unpinning the other and so force discovered guard for the Bishop: it took me hours to find that Bishop key.
2012, “Vertex neighborhoods, low conductance cuts, and good seeds for local community methods”, in Proceedings of the 18th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining:We state a cute result that can be derived from our calcuations. It is not applied anywhere later, but shows that graphs with heavy tails and large clustering coefficients have large cores.
Usage notes
Though all the above usages are understood outside the United States and Canada, they are rarely used spontaneously except to characterize or parody American usage.
Synonyms
- (having features mainly attributed to infants and small or cuddly animals): endearing
- (attractive or pleasing in a youthful, dainty, quaint or fun-spirited way): pretty
Derived terms
Descendants
Translations
having features mainly attributed to infants and small or cuddly animals
- Afrikaans: oulik
- American Sign Language: H@Chin-PalmBackFingerUp Flatten
- Arabic: فَاتِن (fātin), قَشِيب (ar) (qašīb), جَذَّاب (jaḏḏāb)
- Hijazi Arabic: حِلو (ḥilu)
- Armenian: դուրեկան (hy) (durekan), սիրուն (hy) (sirun), սիրունատես (hy) (sirunates), պուպուշ (hy) (pupuš)
- Bulgarian: мил (bg) (mil)
- Catalan: bufó (ca)
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: 可愛/可爱 (zh) (kě'ài)
- Czech: roztomilý (cs) m
- Danish: nuttet (da), sød (da)
- Dutch: schattig (nl), koddig (nl), lief (nl), zoetjes (nl)
- Esperanto: ĉarma (eo), aminda, dolĉa (eo), beleta
- Faroese: søtur m
- Finnish: suloinen (fi), söpö (fi), lutunen
- French: mignon (fr)
- Georgian: საყვარელი (saq̇vareli), სასიამოვნო (sasiamovno)
- German: goldig (de), niedlich (de), süß (de)
- Hawaiian: nani
- Hebrew: חמוד (he) m (khamud), חמודה f (khamuda) (1 - with comical touch, 2)
- Hindi: प्यारा (hi) (pyārā)
- Hungarian: aranyos (hu), helyes (hu), cuki (hu), édes (hu)
- Icelandic: sætur (is) m, snotur m
- Ido: miniona (io)
- Indonesian: cakep (id)
- Interlingua: sympathic, gratiose
- Italian: carino (it), grazioso (it)
- Japanese: 可愛い (ja) (かわいい, kawaii), キュートな (kyūto na)
- Kapampangan: matimyas, katimyas na
- Khmer: គួរឱ្យស្រឡាញ់ (kuə ʼaoy srɑlañ)
- Korean: 귀엽다 (ko) (gwiyeopda) (predicative), 귀여운 (ko) (gwiyeoun) (attributive)
- Lao: please add this translation if you can
- Latin: bellulum n
- Macedonian: симпатична f (simpatična)
- Malay: comel
- Norwegian: søt (no)
- Old English: swēte
- Persian: ناز (fa) (nâz), ملوس (fa) (malus)
- Polish: słodki (pl) m, uroczy (pl) m
- Portuguese: fofo (pt)
- Romanian: drăguț (ro), drăgălaș (ro)
- Russian: ми́лый (ru) (mílyj), хоро́шенький (ru) (xoróšenʹkij), симпати́чный (ru) (simpatíčnyj)
- Scottish Gaelic: bòidheach, stampa
- Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic: сладак m
- Latin: sladak (sh) m
- Sicilian: biddicchiu (scn)
- Slovene: srčkan
- Spanish: lindo (es), precioso (es), gracioso (es), chulo (es), pituso, bonito (es)
- Swedish: gullig (sv), söt (sv)
- Tamil: அன்பான (aṉpāṉa)
- Thai: น่ารัก (th) (nâa-rák)
- Tibetan: སྙིང་རྗེ་པོ (snying rje po)
- Turkish: şirin (tr)
- Ukrainian: ми́лий (mýlyj), симпати́чний (sympatýčnyj)
- Urdu: معصوم
- Vietnamese: dễ thương (vi)
- Yiddish: זיס (zis), באַחנט (bakhéynt), חנעוודיק (khéynevdik), באַטעמט (batámt)
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attractive or pleasing in a youthful, dainty, quaint or fun-spirited way
- Arabic:
- Egyptian Arabic: عسول ('asul)
- South Levantine Arabic: أمور m, أمورة f
- Bulgarian: привлекателен (bg) (privlekatelen)
- Catalan: maco (ca)
- Dutch: leuk (nl), geestig (nl), guitig (nl), olijk (nl)
- Esperanto: ĉarma (eo), aminda, dolĉa (eo), beleta
- French: joli (fr), mignon (fr)
- Greek: χαριτωμένος (el) m (charitoménos), χαριτωμένη (el) f (charitoméni), χαριτωμένο (el) n (charitoméno)
- Hawaiian: uʻi
- Hungarian: csinos (hu), csini (hu)
- Ido: beleta (io)
- Indonesian: imut (id)
- Interlingua: sympathic, gratiose
- Irish: álainn, gleoite, galánta
- Italian: carino (it) m
- Kapampangan: matimyas
- Latin: bellulus m, bellula f, bellulum n
- Old English: swēte
- Polish: urzekający m
- Portuguese: bonitinho (pt), giro (pt) m (colloquial)
- Russian: симпати́чный (ru) (simpatíčnyj), привлека́тельный (ru) (privlekátelʹnyj)
- Scottish Gaelic: bòidheach, stampa
- Spanish: mono (es) (colloquial)
- Swedish: söt (sv), fin (sv)
- Ukrainian: прива́бливий (pryváblyvyj), га́рний (uk) (hárnyj), гарню́ній (harnjúnij), гарне́нький (harnénʹkyj), хороше́нький (xorošénʹkyj)
- Vietnamese: dễ thương (vi)
- Yiddish: זיס (zis)
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dated: mentally keen or discerning; clever, shrewd
Danish
Etymology
Borrowed from English cute.
Adjective
cute
- (youthful) cute, adorable
2010, Kirsten Sonne Harild, Pony & Co. 4 - Lises forvandling, Gyldendal A/S, →ISBN:
2010, Jesper Staunstrup, At være fremmed..., BoD – Books on Demand, →ISBN, page 187:Dyret er altså bare ikke cute... Det er en stor rottelignende dræber, der er altædende.- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
- (youthful) sweet, attractive (of a person, especially a prospective partner)
2014, Ina Bruhn, Maja og Dancer: Hestene på Ponygården 3, Rosinante & Co, →ISBN:
2013, Anders Haahr Rasmussen, Modellen: #dayinthelife, Art People, →ISBN:Josephine Skriver har tidligere haft problemer med sit runde, cute ansigt og har det for så vidt stadigvæk.- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
Synonyms
Italian
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin cutis.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈku.te/
- Rhymes: -ute
- Hyphenation: cù‧te
Noun
cute f (plural cuti)
- (anatomy) cutis, skin (of a person)
- Synonym: pelle
Derived terms
Latin
Noun
cute
- ablative singular of cutis
Middle English
Noun
cute
- Alternative form of cote (“coot”)
Pali
Alternative forms
Adjective
cute
- locative singular masculine/neuter & accusative plural masculine & vocative singular feminine of cuta, which is past participle of cavati (“to die away from a world”)
Romanian
Etymology
Inherited from Latin cōtem, accusative of cōs. The expected result would have been *coate in Romanian, but may have been influenced by cuțit and ascuți.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈku.te/
- Rhymes: -ute
- Hyphenation: cu‧te
Noun
cute f (plural cute)
- whetstone
- Synonym: gresie
References