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cutest - 2 dictionary results

cute

[kyoot] adjective, cut⋅er, cut⋅est, adverb, noun
–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


cutely, adverb
cuteness, noun
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.
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