bathing beauty

plural bathing beauties

1. An attractive woman in a bathing suit.

   It is a curious quality of the bathing beauty that there is no requirement of surf or lake in her experience.

   1933, Alfred Emanuel Smith, New Outlook, Outlook Publishing Company, Inc., page 30

   3 more examples

   And the very idea that a girl could ever at any time achieve fame and fortune by appearing almost naked in a bathing-beauty contest and not only escape the brand of the scarlet woman but actually receive the accolade of her contemporaries' esteem and envy, would have caused her to swoon.

   1976, David Lewis Cohn, The Good Old Days: A History of American Morals and Manners as Seen Through the Sears Roebuck Catalog, Ayer Publishing,, →ISBN, page 206

   The time for the bathing beauty had arrived. Botticelli's Venus, born of the salty brine, was dressed in nothing but splendor.

   1992, Armando Riverol, Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After and in Spite of Television, Popular Press,, →ISBN, page 9

   The 1920s and 1930s had established a convention of showing bathing beauties, many in dauntingly athletic poses, often depicted with male companions.

   2025 July 9, Richard Foster, “Summer specials and holiday hotspots”, in RAIL, number 1039, page 60

   Synonyms: bathing belle