Meaning

adjective attractive especially by means of smallness or prettiness or quaintness

adjective obviously contrived to charm

originAphetic form of acute, originally meaning “keenly perceptive or discerning, shrewd” (1731). Meaning transferred to “pretty, fetching” by US students (slang) c. 1834. Meaning drifted further to describe the pleasing attraction to features usually possessed by the young.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0