Vocabulary: Words That Describe Body Shapes

Michelangelo's David - V-shaped torso
Image from Wikipedia

Do you ever think about the words you need to describe something and realise that you don't have enough of them in your armoury? Well, I constantly do, after I wrote Grammar: -ed, -ing Adjectives and  Movie & Vocabulary: The Smurfs, I have not written enough on the adjectives, now it is about time to restart the engine.

First of all, the best way to collect words and know its popularity is to search through multiple websites and see what patterns appear. Let's first check out the following images.

Image from goldennuggetkeywords

Image from thatsme.com.au

Image from howtolosebellyfatsoon.com

Image from goldennuggetkeywords

 

As we can see, words such as apple, pear, hourglass, rectangle, triangle are the most common, spoon is probably similar to pear while tube and banana are similar to rectangle, and this is confirmed by Wikipedia.

But then we know, there is no limit to a language, especially when words can hurt you just enough to want you to spend money to change your "undesirable" body shape, and so the list goes on...

Image from dressyourbodytype

Image from bedivineblog

Click photo to enlarge
Image from galella.com

Image from findyourbodytype

Image from my-virtual-makeover

Some of the words I consider as nasty, like column, brick and cello. Maybe it is just me, but I really doubt that anyone wants their body shapes to be called apple or pear, or short legs long torso. Hourglass shape has to be the most acceptable one I believe.

With that said, these terms are easier for us to remember and associate to. I guess few actually want to remember the formal terminology...

Image from pponline.co.uk

Image from mydocadvisor.

So whether you like it or not, the descriptive words are there. Users of such terms should be caution not to offend anyone.

One question for you all, how do you describe body shape in your culture? Leave a message and share with me!


Vocabulary:
undesirable -- (adj) disapproving not wanted, approved of or popular
apple
pear
hourglass
rectangle / tube / banana
triangle
spoon / pear


Resources:

Movie & Vocabulary: The Smurfs @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2011/08/movie-vocabulary-smurfs.html

Grammar: -ed, -ing Adjectives @  Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2009/10/grammar-ed-ing-adjectives.html

Body Shape @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_shape

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/undesirable?q=undesirable