100 Beautiful and Ugly Words

206 thoughts on “100 Beautiful and Ugly Words”

1. How could such a cumbersome (ugly) word as pulchritrude resonate beauty, and the high spirited word ‘enervate’, evoke ‘deprived of strength and vitality’ when it suggests something quite the opposite.

   Who came up with ‘penis’ to describe the male organ it is definitely an ugly word.

2. From the time I heard the word SERENDIPITY, I already loved it even without knowing the meaning yet.

3. I’m an English teacher and I teach a unit on choosing words for their sound. One of my favorites is susurrus

4. I love the words segue and lambent.
   I detest carbuncle, carcinoma and horripilation.
   Enjoyed your compilation.

5. I wonder how much of our association with “beautiful” or “ugly” words comes merely from our knowledge of their meaning? For example, if a non-english-speaker were presented with this list, would they make similar judgements based purely on the words’ sounds, or would they need meaning to make such a determination?

6. I think my favorite word is ‘revelation’ (: It’s so dark, yet happy as well. I love it ^_^

7. I think the word Inamorata is quite beautiful, in sound and meaning.

8. I like the words ‘nonchalant’ and ‘cavalier’.

9. I have always hated the word “gelatinous.” It reminds me of the nasty stuff around potted meat or Spam. Yuck!

10. i hate the word ‘bucolic.’ it sounds like colitis or some other disease

11. Please, eschew obfiscation!

12. I know it’s not a real word, but I hate “celeb” because of how it sounds, not just because it’s used by popular media. It feels like a lazy word, too much like “schleb” (please excuse the spelling if it’s wrong) for the meaning, also partly because it feels unfinished and partly because it feels like the sounds just shouldn’t go together in that combination.

    Also hate the word “actually” but I think that has more to do with it generally being redundant than the way it sounds or looks.

    “Sex” is a terrible word – looks good in news articles but sounds awful and doesn’t roll off the tongue. An “S” shouldn’t be hard like that. Come to think of it, “vagina” sounds like something awful – I remember discovering the word before I had any idea of what it meant, and I thought it sounded like the name of a disease. On the other hand, there are names of diseases that sound quite romantic (such as “syphillis”) until you learn their meaning.

13. i love the word cerebellum. I think it sounds very beautiful.

14. I dislike when you read book reviews on Amazon and people talk about “dipping” into books and a book you can “dip” into. Really, it’s disturbing on so many levels.

15. Ohhhhh nice list 🙂
    Uhm you forgot nefarious it means evil thats a pretty ugly word to mee ~

16. Butt. Ugly word.
    Fuzz. Ugly word.
    Snot. Ugly word.

    I agree that the word Serendipity is beautiful. I wish I could use it more often in my work!

17. Beautiful:
    Serenity, tranquility
    Devotion, love
    Valour, valiant, fortitude, chivalry, victory
    Purity, virtue, divine, heaven
    Noble, sublime, supreme
    Lily, lilac, blossom, bloom
    Aquamarine, azure, emerald
    Unicorn, faerie, mermaid, angel
    Lady, maiden
    Poesy, harmony, melody, violin, lute, elegy, aquarelle
    Silk, velvet, velour
    Meadow, lake
    Ivory, pearlescent, platinum, ebony
    Shimmer
    Cream, marmalade, almond, olive, honey
    Dream, reverie
    Dove, swan, robin

    Ugly:
    Rejection, destruction, dungeon
    Avarice, predator, gnaw, gnash
    Jealousy, dread, horror, hatred, grudge, murder, torture, mutilate, cripple
    Lecherous, swine, vulture
    Filth, dirt, foul, stench, reek, rotten, dank, drab, dreary
    Rodent, rat, lice, plague, death, grave
    Werewolf, witch, gnome, dragon (although dragon maybe is not so much ugly as rather evil-sounding), ghost, ghoul
    Curse, poison, viper, adder
    Spit, ooze, crust, blister, pus, retch
    Infect, insect, crawl, larva
    Exhaust, gas

    Sorry if some’ve already been mentioned.

18. Also, beautiful: porcelain, nightingale
    Ugly: hiss, snarl
    shark, hyena

19. Thanks for the interesting list – for some reason and I have no idea why I like the word peril – with its connotation it could be considered an ugly word.

20. I have always loved the word “triplicate.” It feels so crisp when you say it . . .

21. Beautiful:
    vicissitude
    amiable
    Anatomy / anatomical

    (Someone already mentioned my 7th grade English teacher’s favorite – lugubrious – and one of my others, obtuse.)

    I dislike proactive (but mainly because of bad association with a person than with the word).
    Inveigled – not sure of meaning any more but it sounds bad to me. (In-, dis-, mid- and mal- prefixes have those negative connotations.)
    Flatulence.
    Rape
    Adulterous
    Desultory
    Stress
    Cancer

22. My favorite words:
    Serendipity
    Childhood
    Velvet
    Lyrical
    Exquisite
    Carefree
    Hopeful
    Imagine
    Freedom
    Peace

23. I love the word lament. It’s meaning is so sad, but it’s such a beautiful one! Ingrate, and for that matter, grate, have never been beautiful words for me.

24. How about ‘love’ and ‘hate’ ?

25. I’ve always thought the ugliest sounding word in English is squat. I suppose it could have something to do with meaning but really, except for when camping, I can’t think of any particularly unpleasant associations. I really don’t like any of the squ’s (squint, squab, squire, etc), though squirt and squeeze are kind of funny sounding. At the moment, I can’t think of beautiful English words that have not already been mentioned. In French, I love champignon and hippopotame. (That’s probably because I haven’t spoken fluent French since childhood!)

26. I hate words: pleasent and surprise

27. In my first college English course (a long time ago), I learned that nearly all words that begin with “sn” are ugly or negative sounding: snake, sneer, snot, snore, snicker, snarky, sniffle, snide, snafu, snarl, snob, snout, snooty, snit, sneaky, snitch, , and on and on. Their is that exception, though. It is “snuggle.” How can anybody not like that one?

28. There is a “their” there that snuck in on its own. I hate software that thinks it knows more than you do.

29. I was just thanking my girlfriend for sending me this link, explaining that the ‘site is new to me and I intend to visit often. Then I realised something that just sneaks into your criteria: I rather enjoy the sound and stress of “frequent” as a verb, but find it a little harsh as an adjective. Thoughts?

30. Place names are a little off topic, but Everglades always cheers me up. If Heaven weren’t a word then all good people would eventually die and go to somewhere called the Everglades.

31. Based purely on sound…

    beautiful:
    sliver
    shiver
    syphilis
    moist
    ennui
    and any word that ends with an “sts” sound, like fists, wrists, busts, linguists, etc.

    ugly:
    rural
    bog
    juror
    plethora

    I don’t understand using meaning or connotation to describe a word as beautiful or ugly. The word itself is just a collection of letters that we make into sounds. The sounds mean nothing by themselves so those are what I am listening to.

32. I’ve always felt that the number of nasty words beginning with sn so outweighs those with a nice meaning that there must be something in that. Do we inherently dislike the Sn sound???
    Snort, Snake, Sniff, Snag, Snub, Snot, Snow, Snide, Snip, Snare, Snap, Snail

33. Closet, crepuscular, eviscerate and pustule are some of the least pleasant words I know. Abyssopelagic is particularly creepy if you know what it means.

    As for the most beautiful: Aeolian, crescent, lambent and o’clock are all quite lovely. Encyclopaedia has a fitting richness about it.

34. Yes, “crepuscular” makes Twilight sound like a puss oozing scab. Other than that, very few words are truly ugly. When the sound and feel of a word is at odds with the image it evokes I think the word has problems. But the mere scarcity of use or the ancient etymology of a word make only the user feel important and can alienate a reader. Wax with care, all ye poetics. 🙂

35. To me the word melancholy conveys more than a generic sadness, it carries a sadness that is bittersweet or a sadness born from good things that are forever gone…

36. Ugly word: moist.

37. I have always liked the word annihilate. It sounds exactly like what it means. Can’t classify as ugly or beautiful, just a good word that means what says and says what it means. Good article.

38. Crepuscular – ugh! But one of my favorite words is “nimrod,” which is kind of ugly and has taken on exactly the opposite meaning (a doofus) from what it actually means (a brave hero).

39. Let’s combine 3 of the ugliest words in the English language into a sentence: Your egregious blog is simply unconscionable.

40. Personal hate is people who pepper speech with the word ‘obviously’ – if it’s so obvious why tell me? It sets my teeth on edge now just thinking about it. Shirk and scar are ugly too.

    Beauiful words –
    child
    music
    poetry

41. I really love the word “psychedelia” or “psychedelic.” It just sounds so lovely.

    I detest the word “glob” – like “globs of cheese.” It sounds disgusting.

42. I absolutely adore this list. I’m not putting this past any of the viewers that have read this:

    Everyone must have found at least one word in this glorious list, or even in the comments, that they just can’t stop thinking about now, or that they would like to add to their everyday dictionary. In the previous comments. I hadn’t even realized that the phrase ‘cellar door’ was as seductive as it is. And as I read the comments I started noticing that the word ‘euphoria’ was being used a lot, and that is one of the most amazing words to pronounce. The unique phonetics clashed together to produce this word is just so luring. Also, I don’t think anyone really noticed, but where in the list of beautiful words is the word ‘beautiful’ itself? That, my friend, was a major disappointment in my eyes.

43. Inconceivable! 😉

44. I hate the sound of the words placenta and delegate.
    I also hate the word toddler because the German word for death is tod. , really. But halycon, midnight, terrence, pulchritude and lambent are some of my favorite words.

45. I think visceral isn’t necessarily an ugly word because it’s other meaning as an adjective:

    “characterized by intuition or instinct rather than intellect.”

    ..that gravelly feeling that comes from your gut, kind of strong and rough (or at least that’s how I perceive it). There is something so basic and human about it that makes it somewhat innately beautiful. The emotion of it.

46. Hi Mark. I love your blog and have subscribed to it daily. Would you mind if I reposted some of your posts complete with links and urls?

47. Zenith: My favourite word. I mostly found it in tests and competition questions….

48. Noteworthy lists 🙂

    beautiful words :
    blossom
    glamour
    indigo
    martin
    passion
    rosemary
    stunning
    gorgeous

49. “Refurbish” is quite ugly. So is “splurge.”

50. I don’t think that words should be classified as “ugly” or “beautiful” based purely on their meanings, although that is part of it. The sound itself should have a unpleasant connotation, such as “moist,” the most ugly word in the English language. However: words shouldn’t be disliked because of the unpleasant meaning associated with them.
    Some words just glow from the sounds, not the meanings.