the 100 most beautiful words in the English language

ailurophile (lover of cats) / assemblage / becoming / beleaguer (exhaust with attacks) / brood / bucolic (in a rural setting) / bungalow / chatoyant (like a cat’s eye) / comely / conflate (blend together) / cynosure (focal point of admiration) / dalliance / demesne (territory) / demure / denouement (resolution of a mystery) / desuetude / desultory (slow) / diaphanous (translucent) / dissemble (deceive) / dulcet / ebullience (enthusiasm) / effervescent / efflorescence (blooming) / elision (dropping a syllable in a word) / elixir / eloquence / embrocation (applying lotion) / emollient (a softener) / ephemeral / epiphany / erstwhile (former) / ethereal / evanescent / evocative / fetching / Felicity / forbearance (withholding response to provocatio) / fugacious (fleeting) / furtive / gambol (leap playfully) / glamour / gossamer (a spider’s silk) / halcyon / harbinger / imbrication (forming a regular pattern) / imbroglio (altercation) / imbue / incipient / ineffable / ingénue / inglenook (cozy nook by a fireplace) / insouciance (indifference) / inure (become jaded) / labyrinthine / lagniappe (an extra gift) / lagoon / languor (inactivity) / lassitude (weariness) / leisure / lilt / lissome (slender) / lithe / love / mellifluous (sweet sounding) / moiety (one of two equal parts) / mondegreen (a slip of the ear) / murmurous / nemesis / offing (the sea between the horizon and the offshore) / onomatopoeia / opulent / palimpsest (a manuscript written over earlier ones) / panacea (a solution for all problems) / panoply (a complete set) / pastiche / penumbra (a half-shadow) / petrichor (the smell of earth after rain) / plethora / propinquity (an inclination) / pyrrhic (successful with heavy losses) / quintessential / ratatouille / ravel / eedolent (fragrant) / riparian (streamside) / ripple / scintilla (a tiny trace) / sempiternal (eternal) / seraglio (harem) / serendipity / summery / sumptuous / surreptitious / susquehanna (Pennsylvanian river) / susurrous (whispering) / talisman tintinnabulation (tinkling) / umbrella / untoward (unseemly) / vestigial (in trace amounts) / wafture (waving) / wherewithal / woebegone