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338 ANSWERS ASK TO ANSWER

What is the most beautiful word in the English

language?

I know Cellar Door is regarded as a beautiful English word in terms of

phonaesthetics rather than semantics, but which other words are beautiful?

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984Following Question

Cannot write an answer at this time.

The following two are my favorite.

1. SAUDADE

Everytime I see this word it sinks deep inside my heart. 'Saudade' is therecollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought

excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one

live again.

2. ORENDA

Shambhavi Tripathi, Hindi is my eternal love.

291 upvotes by Zain Faraz, Bharat Kul Ratan, Vivek Sharma, (more)

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-beautiful-word-in-the-English-language/followers

http://www.quora.com/Shambhavi-Tripathi

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-beautiful-word-in-the-English-language/followers





Downvote Comments 4+

Written 29 Aug.

Or more clearly,

291Upvote

Plenty of awesome words here. Here is bit more, which are not mentioned

till.

1) Curglaff - the physical sensation experienced from diving into cold water.

2) Staycation - at home vacation.

Virendra Kumar Janghel, childheart <3

564 upvotes by Xu Beixi, Meenakshhi Mishra, Vivek Sharma, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Virendra-Kumar-Janghel





3) Agerasia - youthful appearance in an aged person

4) Ataraxia - a pleasure that comes when the mind is at rest.

5) Silhouette - a darkened shape shown as someone’s portrait.

6) Quatopygia - the enticing movement of a man’s or a woman’s rear end





(buttocks)

7) Panacea - an all-healing substance

8) Pareidolia - recognition of images in random patterns

9) Roscid - moist with or as if accompanied by dew






10) Vorfreude - the intense, anticipative joy derived from imaging future

pleasures.

11) Shangri-la - a blissful place imbued with delight and peace.

12) Tryst - a secretly scheduled meeting of two lovers.

... (more)

564Upvote

PETRICHOR

Abhijeet Sinha

1.2k upvotes by Tejasvita Apte, Priyanka Peeramsetty, Prashant Bhutani, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Abhijeet-Sinha






Written 31 Jul, 2013.

Petrichor is the aroma of pellucid rain drops falling on dry earth. It is usually

accompanied by the first rain after a long dry patch. It is coined from petra

(stone) + ichor (the ethereal golden fluid that is the blood of Gods or

immortals).

1.2kUpvote

Downvote Comments 5

Written 23 May, 2013.

I came across this word in a documentary

'Life in a Day'-A documentary shot by filmmakers all over the world that

serves as a time capsule to show future generations what it was like to be alive

on the 24th of July, 2010.

Anyhoo, the word is Mamihlapinatapai

We come across such look/feeling like this every other day. It is so better to

know this word now,isn't it ?

Swapnil Phulse,☚Got my slow-mo specs on...You... (more)

669 upvotes by Aahitagni Mukherjee, Zeeshan Mohammed, Akansha Jawanpuria,

(more)

669Upvote

http://www.quora.com/Swapnil-Phulse






Updated 31 Jul, 2013.

Waldosia :

a condition characterized by scanning faces in a crowd looking for a specific

person who would have no reason to be there, which is your brain’s way of

checking to see whether they’re still in your life, subconsciously patting its

emotional pockets before it leaves for the day.

Edit : I have been alluded that this word does not belongs to the true English

Language. Yet..I was not able to find any English counterpart that can express

the idea that this one word does. So Probably its use is totally worth it!!

Source : waldosia

Bhavesh Mehta, Everything Undefined.

1k upvotes by Sandhya Ramesh, Shalmalee Nath, Sowmya Baskaran, (more)

1kUpvote


Written 10 Nov, 2013.

This is one of the most beautiful words I have ever heard. The definition is likea sad beautiful poem.

The Welsh word hiraeth has no equivalent in English. It often translates as

“homesickness,” but the actual concept is far more complex, incorporates an

aspect of impossibility: the pining for a home, a figure, even a nation history

that may never have actually existed. To feel hiraeth is to experience a deep

sense of incompleteness tinged with longing. The only living language with an

exact equivalent in Portuguese, through the term saudade, which refers to an

impossible longing for the unattainable.

Meenakshhi Mishra, I am me, no excuses, no regret... (more)

391 upvotes by Xu Beixi, Murali Krishnan, Supreeth Krishnamurthy, (more)

391Upvote

Mesmerizing : capture the complete attention of (someone); transfix.

Mohamed Riyaz, Analogue at birth, digital by ... (more)

37 upvotes by Supreeth Krishnamurthy, Shruti Srivastava, David Durham, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Mohamed-Riyaz

http://www.quora.com/Meenakshhi-Mishra

http://www.quora.com/Bhavesh-Mehta-2

http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/2937616055/waldosia





Downvote Comment 1


37Upvote



Nyctophilia: love of darkness or night. Finding relaxation or comfort in the

darkness

Jatin Bhatia, Carpe diem- Seize the day people!

118 upvotes by Xu Beixi, Guru Pratap, Abhishek Mantha, (more)

118Upvote

There are several words, some beautiful cause of phonaesthetics, some

beautiful cause of semantics. However, few of my personal favourites are listed

below.

i. Transcendence

Meaning : Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme. Lying beyond the

ordinary range of perception. Intangible.

ii. Alchemy

Meaning : A process by which paradoxical results are achieved or incompatible

elements combined with no obvious rational explanation. An alternative (and

rather old meaning suggests that Alchemy indicates the process by which

matter is transformed to Gold.)

Shreya Bhowmick, Always the ugly duckling, neve... (more)103 upvotes by Amar Prabhu, AM Guerrero, Sharad Rana, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Shreya-Bhowmick

http://www.quora.com/Jatin-Bhatia





Downvote Comments 3


iii. Elixir

Meaning : Something that can heal dying wounds and give eternal life. Panacea

is almost similar.

iv. Evanescence

Meaning : The event of fading and gradually vanishing from sight, like mist.

v. Solitude

Meaning : The state or quality of being alone or remote from others. (the word

is as beautiful and profound as its meaning)

vi. Finesse

Meaning : Do (something) in a subtle and delicate manner.

vii. Panache

Meaning : Flamboyant confidence of style or manner.

viii. Ubiquitous

Meaning : omnipresent

ix. Iridescent

Meaning : Showing luminous colors that seem to change when seen from

different angles.

x. Chutzpah

Meaning : Utter nerve; effrontery

xi. Vox Populi (loanword)

Meaning : The opinions or beliefs of the majority. (I absolutely love to

pronounce this word!)

Few words I love just are : Kaleidoscope, Aubergine, Turquoise, Baba

Ghanoush, Nefarious, Vendetta, Mystic, Melancholy etc.

.

103Upvote

STARTLING! ... indeed.

Mandeep Singh Grang, Librocubicularist, Bibliobibul... (more)

214 upvotes by Biju V. Dev, Kaushik Chakraborty, Shivam Agrawal, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Mandeep-Singh-Grang






Written 24 Nov, 2013. via Grammarly

214Upvote



adronitis

n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the

first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent

conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the

center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your

way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness,

until you've built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re

from, and what they do for a living.

Surabhi Sinha144 upvotes by Zeeshan Mohammed, Rishi Jain, Vani Sivasankar, (more)

144Upvote

I wonder if these have been mentioned:

la gaudière

n. the glint of goodness inside people, which you can only find by

sloshing them back and forth in your mind until everything dark

and gray and common falls away, leaving behind a constellation

at the bottom of the pan—a rare element trapped in exposed

bedrock, washed there by a storm somewhere upstream.

kairosclerosisn. the moment you realize that you’re currently happy—

consciously trying to savor the feeling—which prompts your

intellect to identify it, pick it apart and put it in context, where

it will slowly dissolve until it’s little more than an aftertaste.

Apala Chaturvedi, loves alphabet soup37 upvotes by Sana Khan, Rahul Horé, Ashutosh Pandey, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Apala-Chaturvedi

http://www.quora.com/Surabhi-Sinha

http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/47642584250/adronitis

https://www.facebook.com/grammarly






Written 18 Dec, 2013.

This one in particular is hauntingly beautiful, a word describing life passing

you by.

Also:

anecdoche

n. a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is

listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of

Scrabble, with each player borrowing bits of other anecdotes as a way to increase their own score, until we all run out of things to

say.

37Upvote

Downvote Comment 1


I love this word

Ephemeral

Adjective

Lasting for a very short time

Synonyms

transitory - transient - momentary - short-lived

This small word reflects the true essence of life..

Kalpana Mangal

61 upvotes by Ankush Saxena, Sukhamrit Singh, Dhruv Ringe, (more)

61Upvote



My favourite word, by far, is syzygy . It's a triple threat:

Sound: say it out loud: syzygy. Sizz-uh-gee. Sizz uh gee, sizz uh gee, sizz uh

gee. It rolls off the tongue beautifully.

Appearance: it looks so cool! Check out those alternating y's. Three vowels,

all of them y's, all different sounds.

Meaning: Of course, any candidate for "most beautiful word" must also

have a great meaning, and here syzygy again delivers. Its primary meaning is

"an alignment of heavenly bodies", for example during an eclipse. But it has

generalized to also mean a greater harmony or unity. It also has some other

great jargon-y meanings, for example in Jung's theories it refers to an

"archetypal pairing of contrasexual opposites".

Ashton Anderson

243 upvotes by Meenakshhi Mishra, Raj Reddy, Jens Wuerfel, (more)

243Upvote

Prabhat Mishra, biotechnologist

52 upvotes by Nancy Maria, Guru Pratap, Colin Heng, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Prabhat-Mishra-5

http://www.quora.com/Ashton-Anderson

http://www.quora.com/Kalpana-Mangal





Downvote Comment

Written 14 Sep, 2013.

52Upvote

Downvote Comment 1

Written 7 Jun, 2013.

gnossienne - (n). a moment of awareness that someone you’ve known foryears still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the

hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway

leading to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored—an unfinished

attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately

neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly

where you stand.

Sanjay Verma, Proud to be a ISMite

44 upvotes by Zeeshan Mohammed, Arijit Paladhi, Mohit Sharma, (more)

44Upvote

Phosphenes n.

The stars and colours you see when you rub your eyes.

Ankita Keshari, ECE Undergrad.32 upvotes by Rupal Moharana, Shikha Bordia, Emma Kinsey, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Ankita-Keshari-1

http://www.quora.com/Sanjay-Verma-1





Downvote Comment 1

Written 24 Mar.

kalon (n.)

Beauty that is more than skin deep.

32Upvote

Shuchita Sharma

50 upvotes by Shubham Mishra, Prasanna Vengatesan, Steve Black, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Shuchita-Sharma





Downvote Comments 2

Written 27 May.

50Upvote

Pawan Burnwal, Suffering from Wanderlust

69 upvotes by Shruti Srivastava, Varun Pinnamaneni, Philipp Basilchanko, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Pawan-Burnwal






Updated 28 Jan.

Because it describes me. I love spending time with myself and pondering over

my thoughts or reading a book.

69Upvote


Written 24 Feb.

Oxford Comma.It is actually a punctuation mark, a comma placed immediately before the

coordinating conjunction (usually and ,or, or nor) in a series of three or more

terms.

For example, a list of three countries should be punctuated as "Portugal, Spain,

and France", where the comma following Spain is the Oxford comma. There

are contrasting opinions among the writers about its use. And I really don't

come across its usage often.

Here's an example exhibiting the significance of the Oxford comma.

Ashwani Roy, I think my Karma just ran over... (more)

48 upvotes by Nikhil Kanakamedala, Prosenjit Bhattacharya, Serra Winski, (more)

48Upvote

Serendipity.

Anonymous

224 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Erica Friedman, Aditya Sengupta, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Ashwani-Roy






Written 28 Jun, 2010.

For the way it flows in the beginning and becomes staccato at the end. For its

seemingly complex yet in the end simple nature. And for its positive and

uplifting meaning for randomness -- discovering something by accident,

whether in friendship, love, work, or otherwise.

224Upvote

Downvote Comment

Written 17 Aug, 2013.

•vellichor

n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with

the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time

to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and

papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex

littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured

Shri Aravinth, Daydreamer,Socially awkward

32 upvotes by Kelly Erickson, Nancy Maria, Jenil Shah, (more)

32Upvote

Downvote Comment 1

Written 31 Mar.

apricity:~ the warmth of sun in winter~

Sakshi Bist, Loving from a distance:)40 upvotes by Rupal Moharana, Shruti Srivastava, Nandini Godhuma, (more)

40Upvote

Downvote Comments 4

Written 10 Sep, 2013.

Aphasia -

To describe that feeling when you know a word but it just won't come out.

"Tip-of-the-tongue" feeling.

Kanishka Ganguly, Curious, Inquisitive, Quizzer,... (more)

26 upvotes by Nancy Maria, Deepika Pandit, Bheshaj Joshi, (more)

26Upvote

Downvote Comment

Written 8 Aug, 2013.

Sonder:

n. the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and

complex as your own — populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines,

worries and inherited craziness — an epic story that continues invisibly around

you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to

thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might

appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of

traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Source:http://www.dictionaryofobscureso... .

Note: I realise this is not a 'real' English word, but I believe repeated usage willmake it one.

Shiva Suri, avid Quoran21 upvotes by Sujaan Choksi, Sahil Kukreja, Bheshaj Joshi, (more)

21Upvote

http://www.quora.com/Shiva-Suri

http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/sonder

http://www.quora.com/Kanishka-Ganguly

http://www.quora.com/Sakshi-Bist

http://www.quora.com/Shri-Aravinth





Chirayu Akotiya, Startup Enthusiast, Conscienti... (more)

21 upvotes by Nikhil Kanakamedala, Deepika Pandit, Raghu Amaresh, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Chirayu-Akotiya





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Written 27 Oct, 2013.







Penumbra.

In the strictest sense, it means the area half shaded - that area between where

light shines and where full shadows are cast.

But in the metaphorical sense, it represents much more. Legally, its the area

where a piece of legislation has no clearly defined meaning. It's the grey zone.

It represents complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty. It defines something

imperfect, marginal, or shadowy.

But as a word? It's smooth, simple, and easy to say - the antithesis of its

definition.

Li Pi, Software Engineer at Facebook

120 upvotes by Marc Bodnick, Meenakshhi Mishra, Will Wister, (more)

120Upvote

Sarah Brown, Student, writer, designer, dreamer

24 upvotes by Dinesh Ram, Kedar Kholiya, Sunny Kumar, (more)

http://www.quora.com/Sarah-Brown-23

http://www.quora.com/Li-Pi









Downvote Comment

Written 16 Jul.I'll update this as I think of more(:

24Upvote



Twelfth.

I love the whimsical sound of the first four phonemes, and then how difficult

the consonant cluster at the end is--how it makes you transition from your

tongue at the alveolar ridge (/l/) to your lips on your teeth (/f/), and then

tongue to teeth for the last phoneme (/Θ/).

Jeannette Pepin, Linux Geek32 upvotes by Amy Zhou, Smarak Maity, David Durham, (more)

32Upvote

Downvote Comments 2

Written 11 May.The meaning is in contrast with how beautiful this word sounds.

Vivek Sharma, Quoranstein / Quora ID : 16851188

19 upvotes by Aditya Gupta, Kedar Kholiya, Dheeraj Nahata, (more)

19Upvote

Cannot write an answer at this time.

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