winsome

Definition

Charming, engaging, winning; inspiring approval and trust, especially if in an innocent manner.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English wynsom, winsom, winsome, winsum, wunsum (“beautiful; agreeable, gracious, pleasant; generous; of situations: favourable, propitious”), from Old English wynsum (“joyful, merry, pleasant; winsome”), from Proto-West Germanic *wunnjusam (“joyful”). By surface analysis, winne (“delight, joy, pleasure”) + -some.

Example Sentences

• "[…] lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the world to indulge it."
• "Will ye keep your troth to me, / Winsome Annie Ramsay? / Will ye keep your troth to me, / Winsome Annie Ramsay? / Will ye keep your troth to me? / My ain true luve will ye be? / Then meet me at the trysting tree, / Winsome Annie Ramsay."
• "Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was in very truth as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see."