English beauty

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   A beautiful woman or girl who is English.

   Grammar: Countable when referring to a person: an English beauty, several English beauties.

   Patterns

   • an English beauty
   • English beauties

   The portrait shows an English beauty in a silk gown.

   Tourists called her an English beauty because of her fair hair and rosy cheeks.

   The film cast an unknown actress as the English beauty at court.

2. 2noununcountable

   Something English that is beautiful, such as a garden, village, or landscape.

   Grammar: Often uncountable when talking about beauty as a quality: the English beauty of the countryside.

   Patterns

   • the English beauty of something

   Visitors come for the English beauty of the Cotswolds.

   He wrote poems about the English beauty of hedgerows and lanes.

Word forms

Common combinations

a classic English beauty

She had the look of a classic English beauty.

the English beauty of the countryside

We admired the English beauty of the countryside in May.

an English beauty rose

The garden was full of English beauty roses.

celebrated as an English beauty

She was celebrated as an English beauty in her youth.

Synonyms and how they differ

English rose

A more idiomatic phrase for a fresh, fair-skinned English woman; it carries a slightly old-fashioned, romantic tone.

beauty

The general word for a beautiful person or thing, without saying which country she or it comes from.

Word family

beautiful adjective

Having beauty; describes a person, place, or thing.

beautifully adverb

In a beautiful way.

beautify verb

To make something more beautiful.

Commonly confused: English beauty or English rose?

Practice

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Write a sentence using “English beauty”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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