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know?

dulcet
adjective

- sweet and soothing (usually of sounds)

(Oxford Dictionary)

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According to vocabulary.com, the word dulcet worked its way into English by way of the French "doucet," which is related to the word doux, meaning "sweet." Originally applied to anything sweet or pleasing, such as something that tastes sweet or a sweet glance from a stranger, nowadays the word is most often used to describe sounds that are gentle and melodious — sweet sounds.

At the risk of stereotyping the female gender, most women's voices tend toward dulcet tones. That's one of the reasons why female telephone operators were so popular in the early days of the telephone exchanges.

As one telephone engineer pointed out back then, "The dulcet tones of the feminine voice seem to exercise a soothing and calming effect upon the masculine mind." Whether that still applies today is anyone's guess, since we all have become accustomed to both feminine and masculine recorded voices on the telephone.

But even men, like Guns N' Roses front man Axl Rose, a well-known screamer, are apparently capable of more soothing sounds, as the New York Times pointed out in a review of a 2013 concert: "Mr. Rose, whose high, electrocuted-tomcat wail gave Guns N’ Roses its edge, sounded oddly dulcet during the early part of the set."

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SYNONYMS

honeyed, mellifluous, mellisonant, sweet, melodic, melodious, musical

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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation

"I love the dulcet tones of songbirds in the early evening."