Beautiful Words

I just tried to read an essay in the New York Times that cited the words “cellar door” as the most beautiful phrase in the English Language.   HUH? Normally I enjoy lists of “beautiful words” but this threw me. Cellar door doesn’t do anything for me, in sound or meaning. It actually makes me feel a little tense, since I automatically presume that something bad exists behind a cellar door, like a maniac or a dead animal.

I screwed around on google and found this list of “The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English.” Take a look! I was surprised by how many I disagree with. Usually lists of beautiful words are big on euphonious words like shimmer, iridescent,   and lullaby, but this list is all over the place.

It includes “plethora” which I hate, and “inglenook,” which I think is the name of a cheap wine, but I’m not sure.   I misread “fetching” as “felching,” which was a momentary shock that has ruined “fetching” for me, at least for tonight.

Ineffable” is a great word, and so is “imbroglio.” I also like “pungent” and “woodwind” and “melancholy,” none of which made the top 100. On the other hand, it did include “penumbra” which is too reminiscent of “pudenda” for my comfort.

Halcyon” is a lovely word that made the list, as one might expect. It would be beautiful even if it didn’t evoke a nice tranquilizer. I once told a friend that the drug Halcion made me think of people laying in the grass beside a sun-dappled lake. He replied, “They should have called it Seurat.” I nearly fell in love with him for that, but I was already in a relationship and he was a prick.

What words do you find beautiful? Feel free to list your own 100 if you love that many.

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53 Responses to Beautiful Words

  1. Susan says:

    Denouement, ratatouille, seraglio, Susquehanna? And a word I love, ‘aubergine’… Are these words English? I rather like:

    jasmine
    butterfly
    cedar
    oak
    gold
    equanimity
    chrysoprase
    paradise
    jazz
    mimosa
    rose

    – plus many others, including ‘curious’ of course.

  2. XuXu says:

    Lady Sister.
    This will take a fucking while.
    But here are a few:

    Sparrow
    Salacious
    Blossom
    Sugar Cube
    Juice
    Poppy
    Flicker
    Slaughter (if removed well from its meaning)
    Glassy
    Silver
    Silky
    Nocturne
    Marmelade
    Crush
    Blackberry
    July

    The worst word in the world?
    (not counting racist fuckhead words?):

    Drizzle.

    -XuXu
    http://www.frenchshelter.blogspot.com

  3. My favourite words are mainly Welsh or French (I deserve to be called a prick for stating this!) but I am rather partial to inglenook which is a corner by a fireplace or chimney particularly when I’m sat in one with a log fire burning after a bracing walk.

    I quite like the word astonishment too.

  4. kate says:

    Lots of words about illusion, authority, and nature it seems:
    magistrate
    perfunctory
    coda
    nomenclature
    viscount
    obsidian
    messianic
    oligarchy
    lepidopterology
    larceny
    voluble
    orbicular
    traipse
    crevice
    metallurgy
    apiary
    rhododendron
    nefarious

    “Wonderful” is the only word in English that I really hate, mostly because of overuse and how simply ugly it sounds.

  5. Romeo says:

    Madame Pudenda, fetch us a felch!

  6. Braindance says:

    Cerulean
    sable
    tintinnabulation
    metaphor
    lucid
    repugnant
    discombobulated
    stentorian
    cosmos
    dulcet

  7. Dru says:

    Puchritudinous
    cetacean
    bounder (sounds better when it comes from Bertie Wooster, I admit)

  8. JJ says:

    I like “chrysalis”

    and I know it’s not english but my favorite word in the world has to be “pendeja”.

  9. arline says:

    amplify
    bastion
    cerulean
    ebullient
    empathy
    ennui
    ephemeral
    inspire
    foramen
    gracious
    gnome
    meander
    pejorative
    perennial
    philosophy
    poignant
    raven
    umber
    verbosity
    viridian
    visceral
    voluminous
    weary
    wistful

    I am not finished, but I have to go…

  10. Penultimate, squalor and peripatetic are three of my favorite words, but I’m not sure I could use them together in a sentence. Lackadaisical is my least favorite word because it lost me the spelling bee in 4th grade.

  11. Dru says:

    I have an all-time favourite, though I don’t know if it’s been used in about a century- blackguard!

  12. Ann says:

    Pungent and melancholy are great, Sister. XuXu, I too enjoy the word salacious. And Kate, magistrate is also a favorite of mine. A few that immediately come to mind:

    Love:
    Emphatic
    Caveat
    Demur
    Comeuppance
    Spurious
    Affable
    Concubine
    Pestilence

    Hate:
    Colossal
    Global (when imporperly used, which is all the time)

  13. Liz!! says:

    quatrain
    flog
    draconian
    perpetual
    innate (I don’t know why I love this word so much, but I do)
    veranda
    flagellate
    dodge (I love the mind-picture that comes with this word!)
    postulate
    perspicacious
    calamity
    eviscerate

    HATE:
    Human – I don’t know if it’s the word that I hate, or what everyone says when they discuss “humans.” HAAAAAATE.

    Wow…I’m seeing a pattern in my words. I think that I need to go and self-analyze now.

  14. Lisa says:

    Great post. I’m will you on cellar door – maybe I’ve watched too many scary movies.

    My favourite word is discombobulate.

    Others that spring to mind:

    salacious
    obstreperous
    belligerent
    lacivious
    delicious
    lovely
    wonderful
    halcyon
    bizarre
    incredible

  15. Liz!! says:

    How could I forget: cul-de-sac! Such a delightful word for something so pedestrian.

    If I could marry a word, it would probably be that one.

  16. anjuna says:

    I <3 the word 'Possum'. The animal, not so much.

    I dislike the word 'but' though I say/write it more than I'd want to.

    Plenty is also a good word…

  17. dust says:

    I saw an exhibition in Palais de Tokyo in Paris, literally, exactly two years ago, which was called ” cellar door”, inspired by that statement.
    One room was like abandon city scape with hand made trees covered with gun-powder and a full moon hanging above. It was the most beautiful thing.
    We planed to visit more shows that fashion week, but instead, we sat on the bench, in Paris rain, smiling.

    http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fo3/low/programme/index.php?page=nav.inc.php&id_eve=1940&session=35

    There are some videos on youtube, but they don’t do it justice.

  18. dust says:

    Forgot to mention my favorite word

    smrt – means “death” on Serbian. It’s so ugly and hard on tongue, just like death.

  19. Aja says:

    Packages. Particularly the meaning.

  20. Leslie H. says:

    sonorous

    I have many more, but this is what has stuck with me at the moment.

    But if we’re going into foreign/dead languages, I also rather like “lacryma christi” even though i’m not religious one bit.

    Oh and an unpleasant, but powerful word: moist.

  21. dex says:

    Hmmmm.. is a good one.. I use it a lot.

    Rococo

    cornucopia

    gazebo

    fellatio ..as in “This portrait was painted in 1656 by Fellatio..”

    redundundent

    licentious and lascivious

    portabello

    spigot

    lunatic

    There ought to be a Greek God called Herpes.

    Nondescript is such a nondescript word.

    Translated from the Danish the little indentation under your nose is called a “Snot Trough.”

    My favorite surname shared by a Danish writer – Henrik Pontoppidan.

  22. Eliza says:

    Door just dead ends all the rolling off the tongue interest of cellar. Cellulose has similar merits. So does annihilation, Pleistocene, abulia, velleity, hypotenuse, cloak, and mode.

    My favorite English words have been my longtime internet handles: acrasia and ideoplastic.

    When poverty leads to begging in the subway with my viola, our band of street musicians will be named Volgivagant.

  23. Audi says:

    Off the top of my head I’d add myriad, serpentine, panache, obstreperous, eviscerate, and azure.

    My most hated word: bauble.

  24. erika says:

    love
    fuck
    grandiose
    embellish
    intoxicate
    fantasy
    lovely
    amazing
    awesome – i am so guilty of overusing this word
    ecstatic
    succumb
    gravity
    reason

    We could do serious self analysis by looking at the words we fancy.
    okay fancy that’s another one.
    I better never live in England. I will turn into one of those annoying bitches with a fake british accent rather quickly.

  25. Max says:

    On January 23 I sent you my “word cloud” of these very words!

    http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1573918/100_most_beautiful_words

  26. HelOnWheels says:

    I love language, period. So I’d rather not choose my favorite words in a public forum; all the other words would feel hurt & left out. But I’m especially a big fan of Latin bi/trinomial nomenclature. How can you not love (and be a bit frightened by) Ursus arctos horribilis (grizzly bear) or Canis lupus?

  27. I think to get the “cellar door” thing, you’d have to say it over and over in your head until it loses its meaning and you just hear the sounds. But that might just be me.

    Was this a recent issue of the NYT? Because that’s a pretty old idea, actually. As soon as I read the first paragraph of your post I thought of Donnie Darko. Ah, well. Must have been a slow day at the presses.

  28. Oh, and here:

    philanderer
    reconnaissance
    polity

    I hate, hate HATE the word “tits,” but the word “breasts” isn’t much prettier.

  29. David Duff says:

    Sarah Palin.

    (Hey, what did I say? Where’s everbody gone …?)

  30. GlamaRuth says:

    I’m with Mark Twain (I think it was him) who said that the two most beautiful words in the English language were “summer afternoon” – I think that “cellar door” is evocative, but as you said, it could lead down two paths, whereas summer afternoons seem far less likely to contain hidden maniacs.

  31. Bevitron says:

    Great subject, Sister W – it’s why I love you.

    Love:

    incarnadine
    bijou
    russet
    dogsbody
    cascade
    sylvan
    unguent
    suborn
    organelle
    planchette
    axolotl
    naiad
    pique
    feline
    cornbread

    Hate:
    midget
    udder
    piss
    plankton
    stump
    catamite
    pout

  32. hammie says:

    Cellar Door: As long as it is a wine cellar, and the door isn’t locked – what’s not to like?

    and the one of my family crest: “schadenfreude”

    I also like Gore Vidal – although I probably should have put that on your people post. I like the sound of it too. xx

  33. Cricket9 says:

    Many wonderful lists here – I need time to read and ponder, and maybe put together my own list. JJ, you made me laugh with “pendeja”. Pendejo is good too – as in “Sting – que pendejo tan grande!”. Ann, you’re right – “global” is misused all the time.

  34. theresa says:

    xuxu- READ JIM MOORE’S POETRY! he’s obsessed with the word sparrow!!!

    ineffable is one of my favorite words too. i have about 2 poems fixated on it (so ironic.)

    i never got the cellar door thing either.

    i have about 10 different lists for this question. I wont bother trying to compile them on a friday.

  35. nicole says:

    tickets!

    best English word ever

  36. TheShoeGirl says:

    In the movie Donnie Darko the English teacher (Drew Barrymore) writes “Cellar Door” on the chalk board as the 2 most beautiful words.

    Words I HATE the sound of:

    Magician
    Fork
    Bruce (name, not i word but I hate it)
    Masticate
    Waft
    Spore
    Scathe
    Visceral

  37. Rosée says:

    I think Tolkien was right on the money when he said Cellar Door was the most beautiful phrase. Cellar door, cellardoor, celladore, selladore. It could be the name of one of the many beautiful worlds he created.

    Also, over here (not sure about in the US) the “Cellar Door” is usually the part of the winery where you go and taste/buy wine. If that’s not beautiful, I don’t know what is.

  38. Lexi Conner says:

    Great lists everyone! I think when I restart my blog I’ll begin with a “love/hate” word list. A few that I like:
    Liminal (Yes, it’s okay without the “sub” prefix)
    Diaphanous (it’s the Greek in me)
    Susurrus (How leaves talk)
    Soliloquy (Love S and L sounds).
    I used to like “topiary” but The Shinning ruined it for me.
    Cosmos (Love Carl Sagan, and so many wonderful memories being lost in time, on a remote island, watching the heavens spinning above me in the wee hours of the night.)

    ciao for now

  39. Faux Fuchsia says:

    My favourite word is Halcyon. There is a beautiful brand of teeny tiny hard to source porcelain boxes from a shop in London called Halycyon Days. The are exquisite (another good word). I only own one but I love it.

    My 2nd favourite word is stalwart, because it’s funny and I like a stalwart, who doesn’t?

    My favourite nonsensical fashion-speak-word is Visionary. As in “That cropped gold party jacket is Visionary Karl”.

    According to my taste the most gorgeous sentence would be “A visionary stalwart purchased an exquisite halcyon days box”.

  40. Dru says:

    Since this whole discussion started off via two words, I’ll pitch in my two cents’ worth for “scurvy cur”, too.

    Fuck, why don’t I like modern language?

  41. Dru says:

    Doodad. I love that too.

  42. Dru says:

    Feckless. I REALLY love that.

  43. Aja says:

    Definitely love “halcyon” and “melancholy” too.

  44. Jill says:

    I introduce my husband as my “Lover”. My favorite word ever!

  45. Dru says:

    Though possibly the most beautiful words ever when used in conjunction, IMO, are “stone fox”.

  46. sopchan says:

    becoming (adj.)

  47. archipelago is my hands-down favourite.

  48. Dru says:

    poof. Beautifully onomatopoeic, it is.

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