belle laide

English

Etymology

From French, belle (“beautiful woman”) + laide (“ugly”).

Noun

belle laide (plural belles laides)

1. A woman who is attractive despite not being conventionally beautiful.
   • 1979, Peter Drucker, The Man Who Invented Kissinger, John Wiley, published 1997, page 143:

     Perhaps her looks were not considered downright repulsive. But she was not even what in those years was called une belle laide, being neither feminine, nor soft, nor submissive.