Winsome describes a person, a face, or a smile that is sweet and charming in a light, innocent way — the kind of charm that makes you smile back without deciding to. A winsome smile is open and slightly shy; a winsome child is the one everybody in the room warms to. It is close to charming, but softer and less clever: a charming man may be working at it, while a winsome one seems not to be trying at all. It is also close to attractive, but it is not about being beautiful — a plain face can be winsome, and a very beautiful face may not be. This is a literary word. You meet it in novels, in reviews of films and plays ("a winsome performance"), and in older writing; you almost never hear it in ordinary conversation, and a person who used it at lunch would sound like they were quoting a book. One more thing to know: because the word has been used so often about children and about young women in films, it can carry a faint hint of "sweet in a way that is meant to win people over" — some critics use it half-unkindly, to mean cute and a little too pleasing.