When a guy says “she’s cute” he means:
When a girl says “she’s cute” she means:
I have the feeling guys are talking about a general level of acceptable appearance, or at least are referring strictly to appearance.
Women seem to cover more ground: personality, style of clothing, and general physical appearance.
Anybody else notice this?
When a guy says it, he means “I’d do her. I probably won’t be bragging about it afterwards, but I’d still do her.”
When a girl says it, as in “Aaw, aren’t you cute?”, she means “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that you have a chance with me. Loser!”
If I go, “Oh, he’s so ky-ooooooot!,” it means he’s adorable, and is probably being said about an animal or child.
If I go, “He is cuuute!” it means strip him, bathe him, and bring him to my tent.
Depends on context. 95% of the time, when I say someone is cute, it means I find them attractive as it is my catch-all term but the other 5% refers to personality or something someone said or did.
I am female. If I refer to a guy as cute, I think he’s attractive. This could mean purely physically or it could mean he is ok looking and has a really great personality. Cute is a step down from hot, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
When I say an object is cute, I mean it’s cute. Object!cute and boy!cute are not the same idea.
Newsradio’s definition:
Beth: If I were you I’d be upset too. I mean you? Cute? Come on.
Lisa: I am not entirely uncute. I… I… Why are you being nasty about this?
Beth: I’m not being nasty. You’re pretty. You’re very pretty in fact. But cute, I don’t think so.
Lisa: Well I wasn’t aware there was a difference.
Beth: Well of course there is a difference. Pretty means pretty. Cute means pretty but short and/or
hyperactive-- like me!
Lisa: Uh huh. What is beautiful?
Beth: Beautiful means pretty and tall.
Lisa: Gorgeous?
Beth: Pretty with great hair.
Lisa: Striking?
Beth: Pretty with a big nose.
Lisa: OK, you’re making this up.
Beth: That’s ridiculous, why would I make it up?
Lisa: Sexy?
Beth: Pretty and easy.
Lisa: Exotic?
Beth: Ugly
I’d laugh, but that’s pretty much on the spot. 
In my misspent youth the subject of women would come up occationally (no really). Attractive women were broken down into 2 basic categories: hot and cute. A cute woman could be more attractive than a hot woman but in a different way.
Then we came up with a third category:porn-star cute. Basically cute but dirty in a good way.
Shoulda spent more time talking to women rather then about them. Oh well water under the bridge.
dammit when you put a : next to a p you get a 
I meant porn-star cute
sometimes I wish for that edit function
It’s hard to add anything to Newsradio’s interpretation, but here’s my take.
When a girl calls a boy “cute” she means “attractive in a non-threatening way.”
When a boy calls a girl “cute” he’s describing both physical appearance and personality.
“Cute” girls are usually also described as “bubbly” “spunky” “giggly” or something like that.
The words “cute” and “hot” are never interchangable.
News Radio was pretty close on this one. Doesn’t Beth later tell Catherine that she’s “sexy”?
I use cute to to describe a sort of inate prettiness. A woman could spend hours with a team of professionals tending to her hair and makeup, get decked out in the latest fashions, and pose under studio lights for a brilliant photographer, and never acheive cuteness. Cuteness is not the aggressively vacuous expressions favored by Maxim magazine and its ilk. Cuteness does not go in and out of style. It simply is.
And it is a huge compliment.
Cats, dogs and kids can be cute. I have a whole drawer full of wonderful words for women, but I rarely call a woman cute. To be cute, she has to look younger than she is, and have a 1000 watt smile, like she just nailed her landing. 
Exotic: Petty and foreign.
Heh. Petty and foreign.
Woman here. “Cute” I would use about men who are good-looking but not intimidatingly handsome. Or about behavior that is endearing. I would say it about women who have style and again an endearing personality but aren’t beautiful.
I don’t have that impression. I get the impression that for guys generally, cute is either a class of attractiveness, e.g. girlish & bouncy and attractive in a button-nose sort of way; or attractiveness coupled with a playful personality.
One might say, “Yeah, she’s cute,” just to answer some question with a fairly non-committal answer; but when I hear guys use the word sincerely, it doesn’t seem to be the lowest mark in the acceptable range.
What do men mean when they describe a woman as cute? We seem to have a bunch of answers about this
What do women mean when they describe another woman as cute? Only Gigi answered this the way I meant it, but that reflects more on me than on any of the respondents.
When I describe another woman as “cute”, what I mean is that, if I weren’t married to a Goddess whose beauty Aphrodite would envy, I’d like to take her home and ravage her. Or have her ravage me. I kinda prefer being the ravagee, and Mrs. Six is more than happy to indulge me in this, to being the ravager, but I’ll take what I can get.
To answer the question as it was intended, a “cute” woman for me is one that has eyes that sparkle when she smiles, makes me laugh just by being herself, giggles nervously every once in awhile, and is not snobbish. She does not have to be pretty. She radiates sweetness and that makes her beautiful.
“Cute” is definitely a most sincere compliment coming from me. I sort of equate it with “adorable”.
Ugh, sweetfreak, I hate being called cute or adorable. They are both diminuitive, IMO, and an indication that I am not being taken seriously. And I’m 5’8," blonde/blue, 115lbs, with a cheerleader smile, so I have to work hard to be taken seriously anyway. “Cute” is a signal that I have failed. It is almost always accompanied by a paternal smile and a the verbal equivilant of a pat on the head.