embonpoint

/ˈɑmbɔnˌpwɑn/

Other forms: embonpoints

Embonpoint is a fancy way to talk about someone's curvy or plump figure. Embonpoint, pronounced "ahm-bohn-PWAH," is, you guessed it, French in origin. It comes from the phrase "en bon point," which literally means "in good shape."

Embonpoint is generally a compliment, not a criticism — it doesn't mean overweight or fat. You can use embonpoint as a noun or as an adjective: "Your embonpoint friend looks wonderfully curvy in her new dress." Although this word is usually used to describe bodies, the Romantic poet John Keats takes some poetic license when he describes eating a nectarine: “It went down soft, pulpy, slushy, oozy — all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large beatified Strawberry.”

Definitions of embonpoint

1. noun

   the bodily property of being well rounded
   synonyms: plumpness, roundness

   types:

   chubbiness, pudginess, rolypoliness, tubbiness

   the property of having a plump and round body

   buxomness

   the bodily property of being attractively plump and vigorous and (of women) full-bosomed

   type of:

   corpulency, fleshiness, obesity

   more than average fatness
2. adjective

   sufficiently fat so as to have a pleasing fullness of figure
   synonyms: chubby, plump

   fat

   having an (over)abundance of flesh