- pulchritude (n.)
- "beauty," c. 1400, from Latin pulchritudo "beauty; excellence, attractiveness," from pulcher "beautiful," of unknown origin.
- pulchritudinous (adj.)
- 1877, American English, from pulchritude (from Latin pulchritudino "beauty," genitive pulchritudinis) + -ous.
- lachrymose (adj.)
- also lacrymose, 1660s, "tear-like," from Latin lacrimosus "tearful, sorrowful, weeping," also "causing tears, lamentable," from lacrima, lacryma "a tear," a dialect-altered borrowing of Greek dakryma "a tear," from dakryein "to shed tears, weep, lament with tears," from dakry "a tear" (from PIE *dakru- "tear;" see tear (n.1)). Meaning "given to tears, tearful" is first attested 1727; meaning "of a mournful character" is from 1822. Related: Lachrymosely.
The -d- to -l- alteration in Latin is the so-called "Sabine -L-"; compare Latin olere "smell," from root of odor, and Ulixes, the Latin form of Greek Odysseus. The Medieval Latin practice of writing -ch- for -c- before Latin -r- also altered anchor, pulchritude, sepulchre. The -y- is pedantic, from the former belief that the word was pure Greek. Earlier in the same sense was lachrymental (1620s). Middle English had lacrymable "tearful" (mid-15c.).
- beefcake (n.)
- by 1952, "display of male pulchritude" in movies or magazines; said to have been modeled on cheesecake, but there seems to have been an actual foodstuff called beefcake around this time. The word seems to be little used in that literal sense since the other sense emerged.
