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cute - 4 dictionary results

cute

  [kyoot] adjective, cut⋅er, cut⋅est, adverb, noun
Use cute in a Sentence
–adjective
1. attractive, esp. in a dainty way; pleasingly pretty: a cute child; a cute little apartment.
2. affectedly or mincingly pretty or clever; precious: The child has acquired some intolerably cute mannerisms.
3. mentally keen; clever; shrewd.
–adverb
4. Informal. in a cute, charming, or amusing way; cutely: In this type of movie the boy and girl always meet cute.
–noun
5. the cutes, Informal. self-consciously cute mannerisms or appeal; affected coyness: The young actress has a bad case of the cutes.
Origin:
1615–25; aph. var. of acute

Related forms:
cutely, adverb
cuteness, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To cute
cute   (kyōōt)   
adj.   cut·er, cut·est
  1. Delightfully pretty or dainty.
  2. Obviously contrived to charm; precious: "[He] mugs so ferociously he kills the humor—it's an insufferably cute performance" (David Ansen).
  3. Shrewd; clever.

[Short for acute.]
cute'ly adv., cute'ness n.
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.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Cute

Cute\ (k[=u]t), a. [An abbrev. of acute.] Clever; sharp; shrewd; ingenious; cunning. [Colloq.]
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : cute
Spanish: lindo, precioso,
German: niedlich,
Japanese: かわいい
More Translations »

cute 
1731, shortening of acute; informal sense of "pretty" is 1834, Amer.Eng. student slang.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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