Bible Lexicons

Berry's Synonyms of the New TestamentBerry's NT Synonyms

Beautiful, Graceful

ἀστεῖος, ὡραῖος, καλός.

ἀστεῖος is properly one living in a city, urban. It soon acquires the meaning urbane, polite, elegant. Then it obtains to a limited extent the meaning beautiful, although never in the highest degree, (ὡραῖος, from ὥρα, hour, period, means properly timely. From that comes the idea of being beautiful, since nearly everything is beautiful in its hour of fullest perfection. καλός is a much higher word. It means beautiful, physically or morally. It is, however, distinctly the beauty which comes from harmony, the beauty which arises from a symmetrical adjustment in right proportion, in other words, from the harmonious completeness of the object concerned.