comely
/ˈkʌmli/ adjective, verb, adverb
Forms comelier comeliest comelies comelying comelied comly cumlie
- adjective Of a person: attractive or pleasing to look at; beautiful, handsome; also, attractive but not particularly beautiful or handsome. “a comely woman”
- adjective Of a person, an action, behaviour, etc.: meeting accepted moral or social norms; appropriate, becoming, proper.
- adjective Of a thing: beautiful, elegant, well-composed; also, delicate, fine.
- adjective (obsolete) Pleasing to the feelings or senses; agreeable, nice, pleasant.
- verb (transitive, obsolete, rare) To embellish or grace (something).
- adverb (archaic) Synonym of comelily (“in a comely manner: in an attractive or pleasing manner; in a manner which meets accepted moral or social norms”).
Synonyms
pulchritudinous attractive beauteous beautifool beautiful beautimous bona vardering bonnie breathtaking captivating cute divine esculent exquisite fair fetching fine-looking good-looking good enough to eat handsome becoming comme il faut decent decorous seemly bonny sightly
Antonyms
homely uncomely bad beat butters butt-ugly clapped coyote ugly deform fuckfaced fugly hideous
Etymology
The adjective is derived from Middle English comly, comli, cumly, cumlich (“of a person: beautiful, handsome, etc.; of noble birth, bearing, or character; of behaviour: appropriate, becoming; of an event: convenient; favourable; of a thing: beautiful, wonderful; fitting, proper”), from Old English cymlīċ, cȳmlīċ (“beautiful, comely; splendid; convenient”), from cȳme (“beautiful, comely; splendid; exquisite, fine”) + -līċ (suffix meaning ‘like; relating to’ forming adjectives). Cȳme is derived from Proto-Germanic *kūmiz (“delicate; feeble”), from *kūmalīkaz (“dear; pitiful”), probably related to *kūmaz, *kūmijaz (“pitiful; frail, weak”), from Proto-Indo-European *gewH- (“to call, name; to call on, invoke; to cry, cry out”). The word was influenced by come (verb).
The verb is derived from the adjective.
Middle Dutch komelick, komlick
Middle High German gomelīh, komelīh
From Middle English comli, cumly, cumeliche (“beautifully, handsomely; gracefully; splendidly; fittingly, properly; well”), from Old English cȳme (adjective) (see etymology 1) + Middle English -li (suffix forming adverbs).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Pleasing or agreeable to the sight; well-proportioned; good-looking; handsome.
- adjective Suitable or becoming; proper; agreeable.
- adverb In a becoming manner. Ascham.
Etymology [OE. comeliche, AS. cymlic; cyme suitable (fr. cuman to come, become) + lic like.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “comely”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details