cute
☆
adjective cuter, cutest
- clever; sharp; shrewd
- pretty or attractive, esp. in a lively, wholesome, or dainty way
- straining for effect; artificial
See cute in American Heritage Dictionary 4
cute
adjective cuter cut·er,
cutest cut·est - Delightfully pretty or dainty.
- Obviously contrived to charm; precious: “[He] mugs so ferociously he kills the humor—it's an insufferably cute performance” (David Ansen).
- Shrewd; clever.
Origin: Short for acute.
Related Forms:
Word History: Cute is a good example of how a shortened form of a word can take on a life of its own, developing a sense that dissociates it from the longer word from which it was derived.
Cute was originally a shortened form of
acute in the sense “keenly perceptive or discerning, shrewd.” In this sense
cute is first recorded in a dictionary published in 1731. Probably
cute came to be used as a term of approbation for things demonstrating acuteness, and so it went on to develop its own sense of “pretty, fetching,” first recorded with reference to “gals” in 1838.
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