Word of the Day for Saturday November 5, 2005 winsome \WIN-suhm\, adjective: 1. Cheerful; merry; gay; light-hearted. 2. Causing joy or pleasure; agreeable; pleasant. And, oh, it was a sweet smile, they said, none sweeter, so winsome and large it transformed her melancholy face. --Flavia Alaya, [1]Under the Rose The first time I met Diana, she was a winsome little girl full of energy and mischief. --Annabel Goldsmith, "I will miss her smile," [2]Daily Telegraph, September 3, 1997 Every town has them, the youngsters who light up the headlines in the provincial papers, who smash under-age scoring records and throw you a winsome smile just to top it all. --"O'Shea junior's date with destiny," [3]Irish Times, August 29, 1998 Willard R. Espy ... had such a winsome way with words, such an elegant ear for rhyme and such a sure sense of the absurd that he once began a poem with the words 'I do not roister with an oyster'. --"Willard R. Espy, 88, Scholar and Practitioner of Wordplay," [4]New York Times, February 25, 1999 _________________________________________________________ Winsome is from Old English wynsum, from wynn, "joy" + -sum (equivalent to Modern English -some), "characterized by." Synonyms: charming, engaging, winning. [5]Find more at Thesaurus.com. References 1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/155861270X/ref%3Dnosim/lexico 2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ 3. http://www.ireland.com/ 4. http://www.nytimes.com/ 5. http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=winsome Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=winsome