lovely
adjective · noun · adverb
Simple meaning
Delightful for beauty, harmony.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
luhvleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlʌvli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Delightful for beauty, harmony, or grace.
Nice; wonderful.
noun
Term of fond address.
informal
An attractive, lovely person, especially a (professional) beauty.
A lovely object.
adverb
informal
In a lovely fashion or manner; beautifully.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Delightful for beauty, harmony, or grace.
Used this way, lovely is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Slightly formal
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Beautiful or graceful
- Usage feel
- Reflective and slightly elevated
Where it naturally appears
- Music/performance
- Arts writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use lovely
- “What a lovely day to have a picnic in the park.”
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.