Learn English – Why is “handsome” usually used for men, not women

This extract from Grammarphobia, while tracing its origin and usage, comments that "handsome" has had many meanings since it entered the English language in the 15th century, but why "good-looking" is mainly used to refer to man is still unclear:

• The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t mention sex either, defining a “handsome” physical appearance as beautiful, dignified, stately, fine.

• Fowler’s Modern English Usage (revised 3rd ed.) , edited by R. W. Burchfield, agrees that “handsome” can be “applied equally to men and women of striking appearance.”

• But Burchfield adds that “now, when applied to women, tending to be used only of such as are middle-­aged or elderly.”

• As an example, he cites Sherman McCoy’s thoughts about his wife in Tom Wolfe’s 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. (We’ve gone to the original to expand the quotation, which includes the ellipses.)

  • “Still a very good-looking woman, my wife … with her fine thin features, her big clear blue eyes, her rich brown hair … But she’s forty years old! … No getting around it … Today good-looking … Tomorrow they’ll be talking about what a handsome woman she is.”

• We think that Burchfield (a male lexicographer) may have gone a bit far in emphasizing the age angle here, but we agree that the adjective does indeed seem to be applied somewhat differently to men and women in modern times.

Ngram shows a clear usage preference of "handsome" for men from the beginning of the 19th century.

• And though a handsome man and a handsome woman may both be hunks, the woman tends to be hunkier (in the sense of being especially imposing or impressive).

• The adjective “handsome” has had many meanings since it entered English in the 15th century, but it’s not certain why some have tended to attach themselves to men and others to women.

• When the word first showed up around 1440, according to the OED, it meant easy to handle or manipulate. The dictionary’s first citation is from the Promptorium Parvulorum, an early Latin-English dictionary: “Handsum, or esy to hond werke.”

• Over the years, it has meant, among other things, handy or convenient (1530), apt or clever (1547), moderately large (1577), considerable, as in a sum of money (1577), proper, decent, seemly (1583), polite, gracious, generous (before 1625), and gallant or brave (1625).

• The OED’s earliest citation for the word’s use in the sense you ask about (beautiful, dignified, stately, etc.) is from Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590): “A handsom stripling.”!

It’s been used for both men and women since then.

• In Shakespeare’s Othello (1616), Emilia describes Ludovico as a “very handsome man,” while Lady Mary Wortley Montagu writes in a 1718 letter of a woman who “appear’d to me handsomer than before.”