Cuteness can be defined in many different ways. Perhaps it’s something quaint and delicate, or maybe it’s something small and fluffy.
When it comes to adorable words, some are enough to give us feelings of cute aggression. But what is it that makes a term sound endearing? ý Bitesize spoke to three language experts to find out what word have the extra ‘awww’-factor and why.
What makes a word cute?
There are many factors that can contribute to the perceived cuteness of a word. Dr George Bailey is a lecturer at the University of York who specialises in social linguistics and phonetics. He told ý Bitesize: “You can think of cute words in terms of semantics, the actual meaning of the word. Or you can think of it from the phonetic side of things, where words sound cute regardless of what they mean.”
By conducting an analysis on the word cute itself, Dr Hazel Price, a lecturer in English Language at the University of Salford, was able to gain a deeper insight in to how we use the word. Looking at a bank of 52 billion English words and their online usage, she found that cute was mostly used to describe animate things, with ‘kid’, ‘bunny’, and ‘kitty’ being some of the most prominent associated words.
But when it comes to phonetics, it’s not a coincidence that lots of cute-sounding words in the English language end in ‘y’ or ‘ie’. This is because these sounds form something called a diminutive suffix, which is given to a word to express smallness or endearment.
Diminutives aren’t just limited to English either - in fact, they can be found in most languages. For example, in French ‘-et’ and ‘-ette’ are commonly used diminutive suffixes, whereas ‘-ito’ and ‘-ita’ are frequently used in Spanish.
The pronunciation and sound of a word can also influence how it ranks on the cuteness scale. In psychology and linguistics, an experiment called the bouba/kiki effect asks participants which name they’d assign to two different abstract shapes - one spiky and one rounded. Studies show that over 95% of English-speaking participants associate the spiky shape with the word kiki and the latter shape with bouba.
While the effect is highly pronounced in English-speaking contexts, a 2021 study found the effect occurred across 25 different languages including Greek, Japanese, German and French.
While its generally believed that there’s typically no link between an image and its meaning, this test suggests that there may be an exception to this rule. Some linguists theorise that we associate bouba with the rounded shape because a more rounded shape is made by our mouth when forming the sound - whereas kiki produces a more angular shape.
Words that mean big or heavy, like huge or humongous, frequently have rounded back vowels. However, across languages you tend to find that words that are small or dainty (and often cute!) contain vowels produced at the front of the mouth, like ‘ee’, ‘eh’ and ‘i’, This includes terms like teenie, tiny, itsy and bitsy.
What are the cutest words?
So what words have the cute-factor? We asked our experts to tell us about their favourites are. “The first word that came to mind is something with no translation and it is ұüٱ,” Dr Bailey told ý Bitesize.
ұüٱ is a German language word used to describe a state of cosiness - like when you’re reading a book by the fireplace or enjoying a nice meal with good company. “It’s a state of wellbeing and peace of mind and contentment - which I think we all need in the winter months.”
Other words can sound adorable across many languages. Dr Jocelyn Wyburd, Director of the Language Centre at the University of Cambridge and Chair of the Institute of Linguists Education Trust, chose the word puppy. “The whole concept of the puppy is the innocence, the childishness, the want to stroke or cuddle. It exudes cuteness.”
She notes that the word has an interesting The study of the origin and evolution of a word’s meaning over time. journey. The word isn’t related to the word dog or hound like you may expect. Instead it is thought to have come from the French word poupée, a diminutive which means a doll or a plaything.
In Italian, the word for puppy is cucciolo.“The main reason I find the etymology of cucciolo so interesting is that it’s onomatopoeic. It’s the ‘cucci cucci cucci coo’, so again it has that cuteness,” says Dr Wyburd, referring to the sound we may use to catch the attention of a baby or young animal.
Dr Price, who has a specialism in corpus linguistics and pragmatics, told Bitesize the words that stand out as cute for her tend to form part of a familect. This refers to the words and phrases that mean nothing outside of our own families. “My cute word is blue, which sounds very strange, but my niece was learning colours around the same time that she was learning her own name.
“There’s a lovely video where she’s being asked ‘what is your name?’ and she replied ‘blue’. So now blue is in my family.
“I was speaking to my colleagues, her children couldn't quite master cuddle. So now a cuddle is a duddle in their family.”
But it’s worth remembering that no word is inherently cute. Dr Price points out that some cute words have symbolic value and often become meaningful as they are related to the behaviour of the person who says them.
“I think the overall message is that actually, cuteness is about our relationships with people, rather than specific words.
“Those words are going to have personal connotation for us of home, of safety, of love, of feeling happy and so cuteness as a concept will become attached to those things.”
This article was published in April 2024
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