Cute not cute

See more words from the same year. Accessed 8 Aug. Nglish: Translation of cute for Spanish Speakers. Britannica English: Translation of cute for Arabic Speakers. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

I have an pound Chihuahua, and I love to smoosh her against my face. Still, I take her up in my hands, bring her toward my head, and make a noise in her side that is like a small scream, but without opening my mouth. I harass my dog in this way constantly. As odd as this all might sound when spelled out—the desire to nibble your pets is usually not discussed in polite company—lots of people share these impulses toward dogs, babies, or other wee things they find excruciatingly adorable. You might want to take care of them. Read: Puppy cuteness is perfectly timed to manipulate humans. Stavropoulos used EEG caps to test brain activity as participants were shown a series of images of puppies and babies with varying levels of cuteness according to the theory of kinderschema , which are the set of traits, such as big eyes and little noses , that human brains seem to be wired to find adorable.

Young women are much better than men of all ages at spotting a cute baby, finds a new study. The younger women beat older women at the task, too. Past research has shown that the chubby cheeks, big eyes and oversized foreheads of infants can trigger child-caring behaviors in mothers.

Cuteness is a subjective term describing a type of attractiveness commonly associated with youth and appearance , as well as a scientific concept and analytical model in ethology , first introduced by Konrad Lorenz. Doug Jones, a visiting scholar in anthropology at Cornell University , said that the proportions of facial features change with age due to changes in hard tissue and soft tissue, and Jones said that these "age-related changes" cause juvenile animals to have the "characteristic 'cute' appearance" of proportionately smaller snouts, higher foreheads and larger eyes than their adult counterparts. In terms of hard tissue, Jones said that the neurocranium grows a lot in juveniles while the bones for the nose and the parts of the skull involved in chewing food only reach maximum growth later. In terms of soft tissue, Jones said that the cartilaginous tissues of the ears and nose continue to grow throughout a person's lifetime, starting at age twenty-five the eyebrows descend on the " supraorbital rim " from a position above the supraorbital rim to a position below it, the "lateral aspect of the eyebrows" sags with age, making the eyes appear smaller, and the red part of the lips gets thinner with age due to loss of connective tissue. A study found that the faces of "attractive" Northern Italian Caucasian children have "characteristics of babyness" such as a "larger forehead", a smaller jaw, "a proportionately larger and more prominent maxilla ", a wider face, a flatter face and larger " anteroposterior " facial dimensions than the Northern Italian Caucasian children used as a reference.