New Word: Beauty

Diary, ESL, love, vocabulary 2 Minutes

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

New Word # 132

Whenever I hear a story of somebody doing a blepharoplasty (a procedure to double the eyelids), or microdermabrasion, botox, laser resurfacing (all wrinkle reducing treatments), I don’t know what to say and how to feel. On the one hand, we all want to be beautiful. On the other hand, it is very much a waste of hard earned money.

I really want to be positive and supportive for the one or two people around me who go through it, but on the other hand, I just can’t help feeling that the narcissistic social norm wins again, forcing women to chase impossible goals, and attracting women’s attention away from their real problem.

“Love demands labor; beauty demands pain.” My friend M said to me, “you shouldn’t be negative about it when other people do it, just because you don’t want to do it yourself.”

I can’t argue with M’s philosophy. It actually sounds quite reasonable to me and it really rings true. When I think of it, love does demand a lot of labor, and beauty has its standards, for which people have to take pains to fit in. It sounds true, but I am afraid that it is not really true. Believing in it can very well lead one astray; not believing it makes one sound sulky and unfriendly.

Anyway, M doesn’t care much about learning English, but she can remember all those English words (or is it Latin) for different plastic surgery procedures. Every little thing has its own long name. For example, to lift your nose, it is called rhinoplasty; to create dimples, it is called dimpleplasty; to have thinner cheeks, it is called buccal lipectomy. So I thought I could have a word list about beauty.

Beauty In Another Name

pulchritude: beauty

Pygmalion and Galatea: Pygmalion, a Cypriot sculptor, falls in love with his statue, Galatea.

Philokalist or Philocalist: lover of beauty

femme fatale

Beauty’s Effects

halo effect: The halo effect means positive impressions of something or somebody in one area positively influence our feelings in another area. For example, beauty bias is one kind of halo effect.

vanity: excessive pride in or admiration of one’s own appearance or achievements.

dysmorphia: A mental health disorder describing a person who’s obsessed with perceived flaws in appearance.

Phobias And Illnesses

cacophobia: intense fear of ugliness

catoptrophobia: fear of mirror

rhytiphobia: fear of getting wrinkles

venustraphobia or caligynephobia: fear of beautiful woman

anorexia: an eating disorder characterized by restriction of food intake.

bulimia: an eating disorder characterized by regular, often secretive bouts of overeating followed by self-induced vomiting or purging

To Beautify

There are many names for different plastic surgery procedures. I only listed a couple of them.

retouch: improve or repair (a painting, a photograph, makeup, etc.) by making slight additions or alterations.

beauty filter: a filter applied to still photographs, or to video in real time, to enhance the physical attractiveness of the subject.

photoshopped: alter (a photographic image) digitally using Photoshop image-editing software.

make over: completely transform or remodel someone or something, especially a person’s hairstyle, makeup, or clothes.

anaplasty: The restoration of lost parts or the normal shape by the use of healthy tissue.

rhinoplasty: plastic surgery performed on the nose.

Published by haoyando

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14 thoughts on “New Word: Beauty”

    1. Yes, I wish we pursue beauty in a beautiful way. I still don’t quite comprehend the connection between pain and beauty. I probably don’t want to go through too much pain for beauty but I know I am in the minority.

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  3. You know, I feel the same way as your friend. I think about it like my art. I draw a lot but if I ask my friends to draw that aren’t artists, they’d get stressed out. Especially over something that takes time and they don’t really like it.

    You’re allowed to judge anyone in your life, but you can’t get upset when they judge you back. I always found it weird how some people would dress up a lot when I was in high school and thought they were stupid/ridiculous because learning was more important, meanwhile I didn’t shower much, wore dirty or unclean clothes, and didn’t do my homework…so, it says a lot. They actually were doing their work as they dressed up.

    There are just so many things that define happiness and so many things people like that make them upset. I don’t care about beauty, but it makes some people happy. I hate spending money on video games but I’ll beg my mom to buy me art supplies (😓) and that’s just what I really like and what I enjoy. I guess we gotta lighten up our idea of hobbies and lessen our anxieties about beauty. If it stops being so serious (because people reproduce and spawn w/ anyone) to like beauty and be so entitled with people’s looks, it’d probably lessen the blow of beauty.🤷🏾

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      1. I don’t necessarily feel like eyes are the only way that make an Asian person look Asian, but I know (of course I don’t get it like you do) that is a big issue in the community worldwide. I think epicanthic folds are beautiful, but racism and featurism is stronger than kind opinions.

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