Gorgeous means beautiful in a way that stops you for a second. A gorgeous sunset over the water, a gorgeous coat in a shop window, a friend who walks in and everyone says you look gorgeous tonight.
It is not reserved for people. Weather is gorgeous, a meal is gorgeous, a house with tall windows is gorgeous; the word covers anything that gives plain pleasure to look at or to have. Gorgeous is warmer and more spoken than beautiful, and it arrives as a reaction rather than a measured description: what a gorgeous day. It works as an affectionate name too, as in hello, gorgeous, though that is close and friendly and belongs between people who know each other. Keep it out of formal writing. Describing a building in a report, you would reach for handsome or striking instead.
1adjectivegorgeousExtremely beautiful or attractive.
“She wore a gorgeous green dress to the wedding.”
2adjectivelovelyVery pleasant or enjoyable.
“We had gorgeous weather all week.”
synonyms: lovely, delightful
Also accepted in games: stunning
Gorgeous came into Middle English as gorgeouse from Middle French gorgias, meaning elegant or fashionable. Behind that sits Old French gorge, the throat, and a gorgias was a ruffle worn round the neck. The sense seems to have travelled from a throat swelling with pride, through flaunting and showing off, to simple beauty.
Old French
gourgias
Middle French
gorgias — elegant, fashionable
Middle English
gorgeouse
English, today
gorgeous
Built from
From Middle English gorgeouse, a borrowing from Middle French gorgias (“elegant, fashionable”), from Old French gourgias, gorgias (“gorgeous, gaudy, flaunting, gallant, fine”), of uncertain origin, but apparently connected with Old French gorgias (“a gorget, ruffle for the neck”), from Old French gorge (“bosom, throat”). See gorge. Semantic evolution probably akin to "swelling of the throat or bosom due to pride, bridling up" to "assume an air of importance, flaunting".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Everyday Adjectives, Sharper Adjectives