good enough to eat
5
3.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
para comérselo
- Looks almost good enough to eat.
- looks good enough to eat
- smells good enough to eat
It looks good enough to eat, but don't eat it of course.
- It looks good enough to eat, but don't eat it of course.
Examples
-
Her makeup was flawless, making her look good enough to eat at the party.
-
You look good enough to eat.
-
It looks good enough to eat.
-
It looks good enough to eat, but don't eat it of course.
-
Even the litter the breeze blew his way smelled good enough to eat.
Fiction book (1992) -
From what he could determine during their brief conversation following the classroom part of the program, she was a housewife, smelling like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and looking good enough to eat in her brand-new black riding boots and cream-colored pants.
Fiction book (2002) -
On stalks under the crowns were bunches of orange, plumlike fruit that looked good enough to eat, though I knew from my reading that the fruit was in fact sour and puckerish, impossible to tolerate.
Fiction book (1990) -
The cake was so beautifully decorated that it looked good enough to eat.
-
With its bright colors and intricate design, the fruit platter appeared good enough to eat.
Synonyms
278
1.2
Having a nice face or body that people find attractive
16
3.5
Smelling or looking so good you want to eat it
4
3.2
So good in smell or look that you want to eat it
Antonyms
How Appetizing
4
3.2
- Informal
5
3.9
138
2.3
24
3.5
208
1.0
4
4.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built from 'good' (pleasing), 'enough' (to a sufficient degree) and the literal infinitive 'to eat', so a learner who knows the constituents can infer that something is sufficiently appealing to be eaten. This construction is a transparent degree + purpose/possibility pattern and is cross-linguistically common, making the meaning predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The phrase good enough to eat comes from the simple picture of food so perfect and beautiful you could almost eat it. So people use it to say something looks 'very attractive' or 'appealing'.