HIDDEN GEMS

The 8 Most Beautiful Words In The English Language

Image: Marina Vitale

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or maybe in the ear of the listener, in this case. Although beauty is always subjective, there are some words that–for different reasons–stand out from the crowd and are almost universally praised for their beautiful meanings or mellowness to the ear.

Here’s a list of eight of our favorite English words, enjoy!

Image: Isaac Davis

A fortunate but unexpected discovery. Most scientific breakthroughs come this way!

The word can be traced back to an ancient Persian tale about three princes from a far-away country called Serendip (or Serendippo in some versions) that, with a mix of wisdom and lucky accidents, navigate their way through many seemingly impossible challenges.

Image: Matteo Minelli

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, "an idyllic place or experience is extremely pleasant, beautiful, or peaceful." A clear-skied afternoon spent in a colorful meadow, a summer spent at your lovely grandmother’s house on the outskirts of town, a calm and beautiful beach under a cliffside, hidden from view, these are all possible examples of idyllic places. In Ancient Greece, an idyll was also a short poem descriptive of rustic life—which may explain why we tend to associate this word with nature and simple things.

Image: Vitto Sommella

As you may already know, sequoias are coniferous redwood trees that can be found mostly in Northern California. They are the largest trees on Earth! These towering giants were named after Sequoya, a Cherokee man who devised a system of writing for his people's language.

Image: Markus Spiske

A very poetic word, it can refer either to "a film of cobwebs floating in the air in calm clear weather," or to something delicate and insubstantial: the gossamer of midsummer dreams. In Middle English, it used to refer to a warm spell during late autumn, when geese are in season—literally "goose summer." Moreover, the association of the word with light or delicate elements, such as cobwebs, likely stems from the silk-like texture of goose down.

Image: Roman Synkevych

The pleasant scent of rain or, more specifically, the scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. Derived from Ancient Greek roots, "petra" signifies rock or stone, while "ichor" refers to a fluid associated with the blood of the Gods.

When water falls to the ground, air bubbles trapped within the soil are displaced, forming aerosols that carry scents as well as some microorganisms. Apparently, humans evolved to perceive it, as our noses are capable of discerning one of the main released compounds, geosmin, at concentrations as low as 0.4 parts per billion.

Image: Jakob Owens

Aurora was the Roman goddess of dawn, and like its Greek counterpart Eos, it carries the linguistic root of an earlier Indo-European word also relating to the dawn of the day. Traditionally, it is also the given name of the princess of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty.

Nowadays, we tend to associate it mostly with the Aurora Borealis (or Aurora Australis if it is located in the southern hemisphere), a natural electromagnetic phenomenon seen in high-latitude regions.

Image: Mike Setchell

A cynosure, literally Greek for "dog's tail," is a guiding principle, something or someone that is the center of attention. However, it was originally used to refer to the North Star, or even the entire Ursa Minor constellation, since it was extensively used for navigation.

Image: Eddie Kopp

This Ancient Greek word (notice a pattern?) refers to a blissful state of being happy, healthy, and prosperous, usually translated as "happiness" or "welfare." It can also appear as eudaimonia or eudemonia.

According to Aristotle, eudaemonia is the highest good for humans, and the goal of practical philosophy is to better understand this state or experience in order to find a way to achieve it.

Real meanings for unreal beings

What does "wendigo" really mean? 12 mythical creatures’ names explained

Monsters, ghosts, and strange beasts have haunted stories for a very long time, but their names can be just as mysterious as the creatures themselves. Some are surprisingly literal, while others have traveled across languages, religions, and continents before reaching English. From a "knocking spirit" to a goblin hiding in the periodic table, here’s what the names of 12 famous mythical creatures really mean.

The word zombie has traveled almost as dramatically as the creature itself. English acquired it through Caribbean forms such as Haitian Creole zonbi, with deeper roots in African languages. Merriam-Webster compares it with Kimbundu nzúmbe, meaning "ghost."

The traditional Haitian concept also differs significantly from Hollywood's hordes of contagious undead. Zombies became associated with people supernaturally deprived of autonomy and restored to a form of life. The modern flesh-eating version is largely a product of later popular culture, which transformed both the creature and the image English speakers associate with its name.

The word wendigo comes from a family of related Algonquian words, including Ojibwe wiindigoo and Cree wīhtikōw. The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary describes wiindigoo as a winter cannibal monster associated with terrifying, insatiable hunger.

But its literal origin is surprisingly uncertain. The mysterious-sounding word fuels the image of a night monster from past times.

A banshee's famous cry sounds frightening enough, but her Irish name is much less sinister. Banshee comes from bean sí: bean means "woman," while sí refers to the supernatural beings traditionally associated with Ireland's ancient mounds.

That makes the name something like "woman of the fairy mound." And contrary to many movie versions, a banshee traditionally doesn't scream someone to death. Her mournful keening warns that a death is approaching, making her more of a supernatural messenger than an attacker.

Sometimes a monster's name tells you exactly what you're getting. Werewolf comes from Old English werwulf, combining wer, meaning "man," with wulf, meaning "wolf." In other words, the fearsome name basically means "man-wolf."

The interesting part is that wer was once an ordinary word for a male person before disappearing from everyday English. Meanwhile, the alternative lycanthrope reaches almost the same destination through Greek: lykos means "wolf," and anthrōpos means "human being."

Today, finding your doppelgänger might mean spotting somebody who looks uncannily like you. The German word is wonderfully straightforward: doppel means "double," while Gänger means "goer." English speakers began using doppelgänger during the 19th century.

Originally, however, this wasn't merely a word for two strangers who could pass for siblings. A doppelgänger could be an eerie supernatural counterpart of a living person. Over time, the ghostly implications faded, leaving us with a convenient, and much less alarming, word for a look-alike.

If a ghost spends the night knocking things around, German already has the perfect name for it. Poltergeist combines a verb meaning "to knock" or "make a racket" with Geist, meaning "spirit." Literally, it's essentially a "knocking spirit."

That explains why poltergeists differ from the stereotypical silent apparition floating down a hallway. Their calling card is physical commotion: bangs, mysterious noises, and moving objects.

Long before the golem became a legendary creature, its name appeared in the Hebrew Bible. In Psalm 139, the Hebrew golem refers to something unformed or unfinished, an intriguing origin for a being traditionally fashioned from lifeless material.

Jewish folklore eventually transformed the idea into an artificial humanlike figure, commonly created from clay and animated through sacred knowledge.

Here's a surprisingly gentle name for a decidedly ungentle monster. Chimera comes ultimately from Greek chimaira, meaning "she-goat." Yet the mythological Chimera was no ordinary farm animal: ancient accounts combined parts of a lion, goat, and serpent into one fire-breathing beast.

The hero Bellerophon eventually defeated it while riding Pegasus. Its bizarre mixture of incompatible parts proved linguistically durable. A chimera later came to mean an impossible fantasy, while modern biology uses the same word for an organism containing genetically distinct populations of cells.

The Minotaur's name is practically a miniature plot summary. Greek Minōtauros combines the name Minos with tauros, meaning "bull." The famous monster is therefore, quite literally, the "bull of Minos."

According to Greek mythology, King Minos had the creature confined inside the Labyrinth designed by Daedalus on Crete. Theseus eventually killed the Minotaur and found his way back with Ariadne's help.

Break apart hippogriff, and half the creature immediately appears. Its first element ultimately comes from Greek hippos, meaning "horse," joined to griffin.

Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto featured the hippogriff in Orlando Furioso, first published in 1516. He imagined the flying animal as the impossible offspring of a mare and a griffin. Modern fantasy fans may know the creature from Harry Potter, but hippogriffs had already been around for roughly five centuries.

Kobolds were mischievous spirits in German folklore, appearing around homes or underground. Another remarkable oddity is the fact that one of these creatures managed to sneak onto the periodic table.

The element cobalt takes its name from kobold. German miners used the term "supernatural" for troublesome ores that failed to produce the metals they expected and could contain dangerous arsenic compounds. In the 18th century, Swedish chemist Georg Brandt established cobalt as a distinct element.

The Kraken came into English from Scandinavian tradition, where stories described an enormous sea creature lurking beneath northern waters. English records the word by the mid-18th century, when European writers were spreading accounts of the supposedly gigantic beast.

Its name contains a neat grammatical surprise. Scandinavian kraken is related to krake, with the final -n functioning as a definite article, essentially "the krake." Later encounters with real giant squid offered a tantalizing possible explanation for some old sea-monster stories.