mellifluous means flowing like honey. It carries an Arena rating of 2215, earned across 86 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, mellifluous ranks #2 of 42,752 for Qualifying, #58 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #419 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #572 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
mellifluous is pronounced /məˈlɪflu.əs/.
Why “mellifluous” is a great word
Having a smooth, rich, sweet, and musical sound, especially of a voice, tone, or style of writing. From Middle English, from Latin *mellifluus*, from *mel, mellis* ("honey") + *fluere* ("to flow"). Unlike "strident," which assaults with harsh, grating edges, or "dulcet," which whispers with gentle softness, mellifluous carries the specific viscosity of honey itself—a sound that pours, that coats the ear, that moves with unhurried abundance. It is the measured cadence of a sentence that makes you read it aloud just to feel it in your mouth, the resonance of a cello note lingering in the air like something you could almost touch, or the golden syllables of a voice that seems to spill rather than speak. There is in this word a small, melancholy truth: that beauty of sound is often fleeting, and we strain to hold what flows so easily away.
Etymology
From Middle English mellifluous, mellyfluous, from Latin mellifluus (“flowing like honey”) + -ous, from mel (“honey”) + fluō (“flow”). Compare superfluous and fluid, from same root, and with dulcet (“sweet speech”), alternative Latinate term with a similar meaning.
adj
- Flowing like honey.
- Sweet, smooth and musical; pleasant to hear (generally used of a person's voice, tone or writing style).e.g.“[…] Socrates […] VVisest of men; from vvhose mouth issued forth / Mellifluous streams that vvater'd all the schools / Of Academicks old and nevv […]” — 1671, John Milton, “(please specify the page)”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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