well-favoured

English

Alternative forms

• well-favored

Adjective

well-favoured (comparative more well-favoured, superlative most well-favoured)

1. (dated) Good-looking or pleasing to the eye; handsome.

   Antonym: ill-favored

   • a. 1631, John Donne, Satire I:

     Now leaps he upright, Joggs me, & cryes, Do you see
     Yonder well favoured youth? Which? Oh, 'tis hee
     That dances so divinely; […]

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Daniel 1:4:

     Children in whom was no blemish, but well fauoured, and skilfull in all wisedome, and cunning in knowledge, and vnderstanding science, […]

   • 1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume III, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, chapter 36, page 143:

     ‘‘The name is entered on the list as a woman,’’ replied the secretary. ‘‘I think she is the tall spare female of whom you spoke just now, my lord, as not being well-favoured, who sometimes comes to hear the speeches—along with Tappertit and Mrs Varden.’’

   • 1897, Thomas Anstey Guthrie, Baboo Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., New York: D. Appleton and Company, Chapter XIII, pages 97–98:

     E.g., there were two young lady-performers alleged by the programme to be "Serios and Bone Soloists," whereas they were the reverse of lugubrious; nor were their physiognomies fleshless or osseous; but, on the contrary, so shapely and well-favoured that Jessie did remonstrate with me upon the perseverance with which I gazed at them.

Translations

handsome; pleasing to the eye

• Bulgarian: краси́в (bg) (krasív), ху́бав (bg) (húbav)
• Irish: dathúil

References

• “well-favored”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.