Beautiful is a useful word to know how to spell, whether you’re writing an email, a novel, or a love letter.
Unfortunately, the spelling of beautiful is a bit tricky—it’s one of the most commonly misspelled words. So how do you make sure you’re spelling it right?
This article will explain how to spell beautiful and give you our best tips for remembering the correct spelling.
How to Spell Beautiful
The correct way to spell the word beautiful is with the vowels E-A-U in the first syllable.
Beautiful is an adjective that means “aesthetically pleasing.” Common synonyms for beautiful include pretty, lovely, and gorgeous.
Here are some examples of the word beautiful in a sentence from famous English books:
“Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.”—Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger
“I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.”—Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
“I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
“We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created.”—Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.”—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”—Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
How to Spell Beauty
The noun form of beautiful is beauty.
The words beautiful and beauty start with the same five letters—B-E-A-U-T. This is because they share the same etymological root. They both come from the Old French word beaute, which means beautiful or fine.
Common Misspellings of Beautiful
Many people struggle with the spelling of beautiful. Common misspellings include beutiful, butiful, beatiful, beautifull, and more.
There are two common ways that people spell beautiful incorrectly. The first is to forget the number and order of the vowels in the first syllable. The second is to forget the number of Ls at the end of the word.
If you can remember those two mistakes, you’ll find it easier to spell beautiful correctly.
Tips to Spell Beautiful Correctly
One useful mnemonic for remembering how to spell beautiful is to use the phrase, “Be a ’utiful’ person!” That way, you can remember to start with B-E-A, and then all you have to do is add the made-up word utiful at the end.
Another way to remember how to spell beautiful is to remember that the word beau means “beautiful” in French. If you know how to spell beau, you can remember the vowel order easily.
Similarly, if you know how to spell beauty, you can simply remove the Y at the end of the word and add -iful instead.
If you struggle to remember the correct spelling, you can always run your work through ProWritingAid’s free grammar checker, which will help you correct spelling errors with a single click.