beau

Borrowed from French beau, from Latin bellus (“beautiful”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bəʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /boʊ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Homophone: bow
• Rhymes: -əʊ

beau (plural beaux or beaus)

1. (dated) A man with a reputation for fine dress and etiquette; a dandy or fop.
   • 1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, chapter 21

     “I do not comprehend the meaning of the word. But this I can say, that if he ever was a beau before he married, he is one still, for there is not the smallest alteration in him.”

     “Oh! dear! one never thinks of married mens’^[sic] being beaux—they have something else to do.”

2. (dated) A male lover; a boyfriend.
   • 1917, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, p. 142:

     Hannah's beau takes all her time 'n' thought, and when she gits a husband her mother'll be out o' sight and out o' mind.

   • 2009, Philippa Bourke, Monsters and Critics , Dec 10, 2009:

     Kristin Davis has taken time out to enjoy the surf and sand with her Australian beau, photographer Russell James.

3. A male escort.

• beau-
• beautiful
• Beau

• beau in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• Aube, aube

From Latin bibō. Compare Romanian bea, beau.

beau (third-person present singular indicative bea, past participle biutã)

1. I drink

• beari/beare
• biut
• biutor
• biuturã
• parabeau

From Middle French beau, from Old French biau, bel, from Latin bellus.

• IPA^(key): /bo/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -o
• Homophones: bau, baux, beaux, bot, bots

beau (masculine singular before vowel bel, feminine singular belle, masculine plural beaux, feminine plural belles)

1. handsome, fine, attractive
2. nice
3. fair (weather)

   Il fait beau.

   It is nice out.

• To avoid hiatus, the form bel is used before masculine singular nouns that begin with a vowel or mute h

beau m (plural beaux)

1. (Louisiana) boyfriend

• avoir beau
• bellâtre
• Bellefontaine
• bellement

• “beau” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• aube

• bel

From Old French beau, one of the variants of biau.

beau m (feminine singular belle, masculine plural beaux, feminine plural belles)

1. beautiful; handsome; attractive

• French: beau

beau m (oblique and nominative feminine singular bele)

1. Alternative form of biau
   • circa 1190, Marie de France, Lai de Isclavret:

     beaus chevalers e bons esteit
     e noblement se cunteneit.

     Hansome knight and good was he
     and he behaved nobly.

• IPA^(key): [bʲæw]

beau

1. first-person singular present indicative of bea
2. first-person singular present subjunctive of bea
3. third-person plural present indicative of bea
4. third-person plural imperfect indicative of bea