The Great Theory of Beauty and Its Decline

What is called beautiful in modern English, the Greeks termed kalon and the Romans pulchrum. The Latin word remained in use throughout ancient and medieval times, disappearing during the Renaissance, however, when it was supplanted by a new word bellum. This new term had a rather singular derivation: from bonum via the diminutive bonellum, which was abbreviated to bellum. At the outset the word was restricted in its application to women and children; later it came to designate beauty of all kinds, completely eliminating the earlier pulchrum. No modern language has adopted a derivative of pulchrum, though many have taken over the word bellum in some form or other: the Italians and the Spanish, bello; the French, beau; the English, beautiful. Other European languages possess equivalents of indigenous derivation: German schon; Russian, krassivyj; Polish, piekny. Ancient and modern languages alike have at least two words of the same provenance to serve as noun and adjective: kallos and kalos, pulchritudo and pulcher, beauty and