belle laide

English

Etymology

From French, belle (“beautiful woman”) + laide (“ugly”).

Noun

belle laide (plural belles laides)

  1. A woman who is attractive despite not being conventionally beautiful.
    • 1979, Peter Drucker, The Man Who Invented Kissinger (John Wiley 1997), page 143:
      Perhaps her looks were not considered downright repulsive. But she was not even what in those years was called une belle laide, being neither feminine, nor soft, nor submissive.
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