Hey! Have you read "Pride and Prejudice"? You'll find the same use of "handsome" there. At the time, I was very confused when I read this because I didn't know that, in the past, the word was used to describe women as well.

Hello! In the past, it was much more common to describe women as "handsome". You can find this in old novels of classic authors like Oscar Wilde or Virginia Woolf. If you are into classic literature, you will definitely come accross this more often! However, it's kind of old fashioned now and people don't really describe women as "handsome" anymore, to the point that in language schools they usually tell you that "handsome" is used to describe men and "beautiful" is used to describe women, but it wasn't like this in the past and the adjective was used for everyone! I hope to have helped you!

Using the word handsome to describe a woman was commonplace in the past. This is an antiquated feminine adjective these days though. It is now more common to refer to a woman as beautiful rather than handsome.

Hi there Anna, Believe it or not the adjective handsome can be used to describe both men and women to denote good looks. Yes, in todays day and age it is not commonly used we prefer words like stunning, gorgeous and so on but in previous times it was normal to describe both men and women as handsome. Hope this helps....