I didn't until I ran across it recently. Well, I guess that's sorta the way all words are learned. "I didn't know about it until I knew about it!" Ha ha.
Anyway, it means "physically beautiful" (usually associated with female outward beauty) although I would think it could apply to waterfalls as well.
After I looked it up, I suspected there might be a derivative noun. At first I thought "pulchritudite" but it is really "pulchritude". There is also "pulchritudity" interestingly enough.
A quick (Safeseach off) google image search suggests that "pulchritudes" has become a sophisticated euphamism for soft-core artistic porn.
One Panel #793: Special Guest Robin Hood
1 hour ago
Haha! How did you come upon that word, anyway?
ReplyDeleteIt was in my Edgar Rice Burrough's biography (he's the Tarzan author) and later I heard it in a word game at Huff's house. One of those games where you think up some plausible bogus definition to bluff you way through. Apparently, the game's designers thought it too obscure for people to know...
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