belle laide

English

Etymology

French, from belle ‘beautiful’ laide ‘ugly (woman)’.

Noun

belle laide (plural belles laides)

1. An attractive ugly woman.
   • 1979: 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. — Peter Drucker, The Man Who Invented Kissinger (John Wiley 1997, p. 143)