Beautiful Words

Beautiful words to liven up your writing.

Assemblage: A gathering

Becoming: Attractive

Beleaguer: To exhaust with attacks

Brood: To think alone

Bucolic: In a lovely rural setting

Bungalow: A small, cozy cottage

Chatoyant: Like a cat's eye

Comely: Attractive

Conflate: To blend together

Cynosure: A focal point of admiration

Dalliance: A brief love affair

Demesne: Dominion, or territory

Demure: Shy and reserved

Denouement: The resolution of a mystery

Desuetude: Disuse

Desultory: Slow, sluggish

Diaphanous: Filmy

Dissemble: Deceive

Dulcet: Sweet, sugary

Ebullience: Bubbling enthusiasm

Effervescent: Bubbly

Efflorescence: Flowering, blooming

Elixir: A high-quality potion

Eloquence: Beauty and persuasion in speech

Embrocation: Rubbing on a lotion

Emollient: A softener

Ephemeral: Short-lived

Epiphany: A sudden revelation

Erstwhile: At one time, for a time

Ethereal: Gaseous, invisible but detectable

Evanescent: Vanishing quickly, or short-lived

Evocative: Suggestive

Fetching: Pretty/handsome

Felicity: Pleasantness

Forbearance: Withholding response

Fugacious: Fleeting

Furtive: Shifty/sneaky

Gambol: Skip or leap about joyfully

Glamour: beauty

Gossamer: Finest piece of thread, or spider's silk

Halcyon: Happy, care-free

Harbinger: Messenger for future events

Imbrication: overlapping and forming a regular pattern

Imbroglio: An altercation or complicated situation

Imbue: infuse, instill

Incipient: Beginning, or early stage

Ineffable: Unutterable

Ingenue: A naive young woman

Inglenook: A cozy nook by the hearth

Insouciance: Blithe nonchalance

Inure: to become jaded

Labyrinthine: Twisting and turning

Lagniappe: A special kind of gift

Lagoon: A small gulf or inlet

Languor: Listlessness, inactive

Lassitude: Weariness

Leisure: free time

Lilt: To move musically or lively

Lissome: slender and graceful

Lithe: Slender and flexible

Mellifluous: Sweet sounding

Moiety: One of two equal parts

Mondegreen: A slip of the ear

Murmurous: Murmuring

Nemesis: An unconquerable archenemy

Offing: The sea between the horizon and the shore

Onomatopoeia: A word which sounds like its meaning

Opulent: lush, luxurious

Palimpsest: A manuscript written over earlier ones

Panacea: A solution for all problems

Panoply: A complete set

Pastiche: An art work combining materials from various sources

Penumbra: half-shadow

Petrichor: The smell of earth after the rain

Plethora: a large quantity

Propinquity: an inclination

Pyrrhic: successful with heavy losses

Quintessential: Most essential

Ravel: To Knit or unknit

Redolent: Fragrant

Riparian: By the bank of a stream

Ripple: a small wave

Scintilla: A spark or very small thing

Sempiternal: Eternal

Serendipity: finding something nice while looking for something else

Summery: light, delicate or warm and sunny

Sumptuous: lush, yummy

Surreptitious: Secretive

Susurrous: Whispering, hissing

Talisman: good luck charm

Tintinnabulation: Tinkling

Untoward: Unseemly, inappropriate

Vestigial: In trace amounts

Wafture: waving

Wherewithal: the means

Woebegone: sorrowful, downcast

     These words can liven up your writing, but use them sparingly, lest you sound presumptuous.