The best way to learn similar words is to learn them
in phrases. Learn the words that go along with them.
Who do we talk about?
So let's start with "beautiful",
"pretty", "gorgeous", and "handsome". Who does
each word usually describe?
a beautiful woman
a pretty girl
a gorgeous girl
a handsome man
You can see a few differences immediately. First, the
word "handsome" usually describes men instead of women. Next,
"beautiful" fits best with "woman" instead of
"girl". So you can see that the word "beautiful" is a
little more sophisticated.
What do we talk about?
Now let's see what objects these
words usually describe:
a beautiful dress
beautiful flowers
beautiful scenery
gorgeous hair
a gorgeous dress
a gorgeous beach
a pretty face
a pretty picture
a pretty dress
handsome features
a handsome profit
Some interesting things to notice here: all of the
"female" words can be used to describe a dress. So you can tell that
there is overlap between the words. In a lot of situations, you have more than
one choice.
You can see that both "pretty" and
"handsome" describe someone's face. But we use "features"
to talk about a man's face instead of the word "face".
"Beautiful" and
"gorgeous" describe parts of nature. But "beautiful" is
more common when talking about something small like a flower, while
"gorgeous" fits bettter with something
large like a beach.
Finally, isn't it funny that a common use of
"handsome" is related to money? A "handsome" profit means a
large amount of profit.
What else comes with it?
Adjectives are often used along with an adverb. Let's
look at what adverbs fit well with "beautiful", "pretty",
"gorgeous", and "handsome":
incredibly beautiful
stunningly beautiful
conventionally pretty
exceptionally pretty
absolutely gorgeous
drop-dead gorgeous
strikingly handsome
ruggedly handsome
Here, we see a lot of differences. Each word has a
different set of adverbs that it fits with.
Many of these adverbs just mean "very":
"incredibly", "stunningly", "exceptionally",
"absolutely", "drop-dead", and "strikingly" all
emphasize how good-looking something is.
The phrase "conventially pretty" means pretty in an
ordinary and not very exciting way.
A "ruggedly handsome" man is handsome in a
kind of rough-looking way.
We can also look at what other adjectives
are often used together with "beautiful", "pretty",
"gorgeous", and "handsome":
beautiful and elegant
beautiful and talented
smart and pretty
pretty/sexy
beautiful and gorgeous
tall and gorgeous
tall and handsome
handsome, young
You can form your own conclusions based on this list.
Do you notice any interesting or surprising combinations?
What should you do with all of this information?
You still probably don't completely understand the
differences between "beautiful", "pretty",
"gorgeous", and "handsome". That's OK! Most English
speakers couldn't explain them either.
But hopefully, you now have some feeling for
how they're used.
The best way to keep this feeling is to memorize each
of these phrases. Remember which words go together. Here's a fill-in-the-blank
list to help you:
1. a ___ woman
2. absolutely ___
3. a ___ beach
4. stunningly ___
5. a ___ picture
6. conventionally ___
7. ___ hair
8. ___ features
9. tall and ___ (2 answers)
10.
a ___ profit
11.
a ___ dress (3 answers)
12.
incredibly ___
13.
exceptionally ___
14.
___ flowers
15.
a ___ girl (2 answers)
16.
drop-dead ___
17.
___, young
18.
___/sexy
19.
a ___ face
20.
strikingly ___
21.
a ___ man
22.
ruggedly ___
23.
___ and elegant
24.
smart and ___
25.
beautiful and ___
26.
___ and talented
27.
___ scenery
When it comes time to choose which word to use, you'll
have some examples to compare to.
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