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# The BFD Word of the Day
- URL: https://goodoil.news/the-bfd-word-of-the-day-660/
- Published: 2021-11-19T17:15:00.000Z
- Updated: 2021-09-15T19:24:54.000Z
- Author: David Theobald
- Tags: General, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-17 01:31

The word for today is…

cute (adjective, noun):

*adjective*  
1a : clever or shrewd often in an underhanded manner  
b : impertinent, smart-alecky  
2 : attractive or pretty especially in a childish, youthful, or delicate way  
3 : obviously straining for effect

*noun*  
: the quality or state of being cute or cutesy

Source : [Merriam -Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cute?ref=goodoil.news)

Etymology : Cute is a word whose meaning has gone has gone through a thorough historical transformation. There is no argument about cute’s derivation: it is a shortening of acute (and was sometimes actually spelled ‘cute). Acute has meant “clever, shrewd” since Shakespeare’s time and has had a set of other meanings as well, but it has never been defined as “attractive or pretty.” The contraction cute first appears in the early 18th century, but only a century later does it begin to take on its distinctive modern meaning; even after 1900 children were still being called cute as a compliment to their intelligence. (Compare the contemporaneous word cunning, with its strikingly similar ambiguity.) A few years into the century, we start to see the word—finally!—in descriptions of puppies and kittens. But the original sense hasn’t completely vanished; in such sentences as “Don’t get cute with me,” cute has nothing to do with adorable sweetness.

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