aes·thet·ic / esˈ[unvoicedth]etik/ (also es·thet·ic) • adj. concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty: the pictures give aesthetic pleasure. ∎  giving or designed to give pleasure through beauty; of pleasing appearance.• n. [in sing.] a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of a particular artist or artistic movement: the Cubist aesthetic.DERIVATIVES: aes·thet·i·cal·ly / -ik(ə)lē/ adv. an aesthetically pleasing color combination. ORIGIN: late 18th cent. (in the sense ‘relating to perception by the senses’): from Greek aisthētikos, from aisthēta ‘perceptible things,’ from aisthesthai ‘perceive.’ The sense ‘concerned with beauty’ was coined in German in the mid 18th cent. and adopted into English in the early 19th cent., but its use was controversial until late in the century.

aesthetic XIX (but used occas, before 1800 in the Kantian sense ‘pert. to the philosophy of sensuous perception’). The current sense ‘pert. to the criticism of the beautiful or to the theory of taste’ is derived ult. from the title of A. T. Baumgarten's ‘Aesthetica’ (1750). — Gr. aisthētikós, f. aisthētá things perceptible by the senses, f. aísthesthai perceive; see -IC.
Also aesthetics XIX. Hence aesthete XIX, prob. after athlete.