Definition
adjPossessing physical features, behaviors, personality traits or other properties that are mainly attributed to infants and small or cuddly animals; e.g. fair, dainty, round, and soft physical features, disproportionately large eyes and head, playfulness, fragility, helplessness, curiosity or shyness, innocence, affectionate behavior.
adjLovable, charming, attractive or pleasing, especially in a youthful, dainty, quaint or fun-spirited way.
Sentence Examples
This baby penguin is too cute!
You're such a cute boy.
Look at the cute little baby sleeping in the cradle.
Word Origin & History
Aphetic form of acute, originally meaning “keenly perceptive or discerning, shrewd” (1731). Meaning transferred to “pretty, fetching” by US students (slang) c. 1834. Meaning drifted further to describe the pleasing attraction to features usually possessed by the young.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"I ordered her to strip for me and made her wiggle her cute little ass as she took off her panties."
— 2010, Vernon J. Geberth, Sex-Related Homicide and Death Investigation, page 116:
""This time we aren't interested in anything cute or cryptic. We want the truth.""
— 1957 May 26, William P. McGivern, Alfred Hitchcock's Suspense Magazine, page 102, column 2:
"'Filled with old doddering peers, cute financial magnates, clever wirepullers, big brewers with bulbous noses. All the enemies of progress are there — weaklings, sleek, slug, comfortable, self-important individuals."
— 1908, Winston Churchill, Letter to his fianceé Clementine:
""The police are cute enough, of course, to choose either a Roman Catholic or a materialist as the magistrate.""
— 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:
"Cute solution to pin one Knight by unpinning the other and so force discovered guard for the Bishop: it took me hours to find that Bishop key."
— 1963, The Tablet, volume 217: