Talk:lovely

Pronunciation

Well, what about dialects? I think they should be shown for they can be very different. I mean only the extra cases, in this case for instance Yorkshire where lovely is pronounced /lʊvlɪ/ or /lʊvleɪ/. See also: love. Sincererly --Ferike333 15:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

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lovely

Etymology 2: "worthy to be praised". Is it obsolete perhaps? Equinox ◑ 16:21, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

How does one distinguish in a quote between this meaning and "inspiring love"? In any case, the best I could come up with were quotes such as the following:

Kiwima (talk) 21:53, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

As to your question, your citations do a pretty good job of suggesting "praiseworthiness" rather than some other sense of lovely.

It does seem obsolete, although perhaps clerics are trained in the distinction, making it perhaps archaic to them, though obsolete to the rest of us, who need to consult our dictionary to believe in a distinct sense. DCDuring TALK 23:13, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I would mark it as archaic, since I'm fairly sure I've heard it used in this sense in at least one contemporary hymn. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:10, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I found that hymn:

Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down

Here I am to say that You're my God

You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy

Altogether wonderful to me, my Lord

I'm not sure if it's unambiguous, but it does seem to fit this sense better than the more common ones. I suspect that in any modern usage, the lines between the two etymologies are a little bit blurred in the minds of anyone using the word, given that it's not really used nowadays, and the usage in the song I quoted is no doubt modelled off of older hymns rather than exemplifying the currency of the word. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:17, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

In perhaps idiomatic speech, it seems to be implied in the negative use:

• "[Well,] wasn't that lovely?"
• "that's a lovely attitude."
• "not a lovely [noun]"

- Amgine/ ^t·e 19:20, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

lovely and

In informal speaking, when we want to emphasise something positive, we often use and after nice or lovely with another adjective --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:18, 2 February 2021 (UTC)