Beautiful or lovely in appearance; a more formal or poetic way to say something is beautiful.
From Middle English and Old French beaute (beauty), combined with the -ous suffix meaning 'full of.' The word became popular in Shakespeare's time (1500s-1600s) and remains primarily literary today.
Shakespeare loved this word—he used 'beauteous' 17 times in his plays because it sounds more musical and dramatic than plain 'beautiful,' which is why you'll mostly encounter it in poetry and fantasy novels rather than everyday speech.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.