Before I ſet forward on my travels, I choſe to change my name from Collier to Coglioni or Collioni, as more euphonious; […]

We think it difficult to copy more successfully a model so curiously polished as the Botanic Garden; to assemble ideas more luxuriously elegant; to annex epithets more unexpectedly apposite: or to harmonize couplets more imitative and euphonious.

I know our theatrical managers, major and minor, are very particular in selecting euphonious titles for their melodramas, especially if on a domestic subject, such as "Bennet, the Butcher," "Davidge, the Dustman," "Harley, the Harper," "Vining, the Vintner." Why those very titles alone, by their tickling effect on the ear, would fill the pit and galleries of the Surrey, Victoria, or Adelphi theatres, for twelve consecutive months, if the pieces bearing those euphonious names were immediately produced.

Many persons, hoping to appear polite, deprive their words of the letter "r," which gives a forcible and euphonious ending to many English words and syllables. This is a peculiarity of the cockney dialect, spoken by the lowest classes in the city of London, but on being transported across the Atlantic it is adopted by many who would be thought refined.

"My name is Catmur." / "A bad name, a name I don't like at all." / "Why?" / "Oh, because it has a bad sound. It isn't a bit euphonious, and is no excuse in the world for your kicking up such a row, you know. That row was not euphonious either, you know. There's nothing euphonious about you. What do you want? Why don't you go away?"

In every case the geographic name should be euphonious, and not too long, and where it has a meaning the idea conveyed should be pleasant and appropriate. To be most euphonious a name should consist of a regular succession of vowel and consonant or liquid sounds without redundancy or awkward combinations of either; the elemental sounds themselves should be euphonious, and in words of more than two syllables the accent, as a rule, should fall on the last syllable or the penult. […] Botanic and biologic terms from the Latin and Greek are almost always euphonious and may appropriately be used when not too long.

In this opera Tristan und Isolde (composed 1857–1859)] [Richard] Wagner has not only created a special euphonious and polyphonic atmosphere, but through the peculiar meaning of certain expressive sounds has produced effects never heard before, which through a magic emotion all over the work.

By strictly adhering to the correct grammatical form and, perhaps, gradually extending its use, we could all help to render our language more euphonious and so more attractive to foreigners.

[Aelius] Dionysios speaks with regards to melody in terms of using the most euphonious and smooth letters, blending the rough-sounding letters and syllables with their smooth-sounding counterparts, short with long syllables, etc.

Often when he approaches this question you can watch him—with a sudden flourish of meaningless, euphonious adjectives—trace a broken silhouette around the answer, as when he talks about "the natural evolution of spontaneous vegetable life exerted in wisdom thro' ages" […]

Intuitively, there could be a piece of characterless prose which nevertheless happens to be euphonious, i.e., the words it contains make a pleasing musical sound. Imagine, for example, an incompetent Freshman English paper in which the ideas are unclearly expressed, the sentence structure confused and the choice of words unimaginative. […] Yet, quite by chance, the ill-chosen words are euphonious: l's, m's and n's predominate, there are only a few plosives or fricatives, and the vowel sounds fit together in a melodious way. To say that this work is in a "euphonious style," however, is at best misleading, since intuitively it is not in a style at all.

Euphonious

Meaning

Adj

Origin

Synonyms

Antonyms

Related

Rhymes