comely
Meanings
- Attractive; visually pleasing; good-looking.
- Of a person: attractive or pleasing to look at; beautiful, handsome; also, attractive but not particularly beautiful or handsome.
- Of a person, an action, behaviour, etc.: meeting accepted moral or social norms; appropriate, becoming, proper.
- Of a thing: beautiful, elegant, well-composed; also, delicate, fine.
- Pleasing to the feelings or senses; agreeable, nice, pleasant.
- To embellish or grace (something).
- Synonym of comelily (“in a comely manner: in an attractive or pleasing manner; in a manner which meets accepted moral or social norms”).
Pronunciation
Word forms
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. Cognates Middle Dutch komelick, komlick Middle High German gomelīh, komelīh