Elegant \El"e*gant\, a. [L. elegans, -antis; akin to eligere to
pick out, choose, select: cf. F. ['e]l['e]gant. See Elect.]
1. Very choice, and hence, pleasing to good taste;
characterized by grace, propriety, and refinement, and the
absence of every thing offensive; exciting admiration and
approbation by symmetry, completeness, freedom from
blemish, and the like; graceful; tasteful and highly
attractive; as, elegant manners; elegant style of
composition; an elegant speaker; an elegant structure.
[1913 Webster]
A more diligent cultivation of elegant literature. --Prescott. [1913 Webster]
2. Exercising a nice choice; discriminating beauty or sensitive to beauty; as, elegant taste.
Syn: Tasteful; polished; graceful; refined; comely; handsome; richly ornamental. [1913 Webster]
elegant
adj
1: refined and tasteful in appearance or behavior or style;
"elegant handwriting"; "an elegant dark suit"; "she was
elegant to her fingertips"; "small churches with elegant
white spires"; "an elegant mathematical solution--simple
and precise and lucid" [ant: inelegant]
2: suggesting taste, ease, and wealth [syn: elegant,
graceful, refined]
3: displaying effortless beauty and simplicity in movement or
execution; "an elegant dancer"; "an elegant mathematical
solution -- simple and precise"
228 Moby Thesaurus words for "elegant": Attic, Babylonian, Ciceronian, Corinthian, advantageous, aesthetic, aesthetically appealing, apt, arabesque, artistic, attractive, august, auspicious, awe-inspiring, awful, barbaric, baroque, beauteous, beautiful, becoming, beneficial, benevolent, bon, bonny, braw, bueno, busy, capital, chaste, chic, chichi, choice, civilized, classic, classy, clear, clever, clothes-conscious, cogent, comely, commendable, cosmopolitan, courtly, cultivated, cultured, dainty, dapper, dashing, debonair, decent, decorous, delicate, deluxe, dignified, direct, discerning, discriminating, dressed to advantage, dressed to kill, easy, elaborate, endowed with beauty, estimable, euphemistic, euphuistic, excellent, expedient, exquisite, extravagant, eye-filling, facile, fair, famous, fancy, fashionable, fastidious, favorable, fine, finished, flamboyant, florid, flowerlike, flowery, flowing, fluent, formalistic, frilly, fussy, genteel, glorious, good, goodly, goody good-good, goody-goody, graceful, gracile, gracious, grand, grandiose, handsome, healthy, heavy, helpful, high-wrought, imposing, impressive, in, ingenious, jaunty, kind, labored, laudable, limpid, lovely, lucid, luxuriant, luxurious, magnificent, majestic, mincing, modest, modish, moresque, namby-pamby, natty, natural, neat, nice, nifty, nobby, noble, opulent, ornate, ostentatious, overelaborate, overelegant, overlabored, overnice, overprecise, overrefined, overworked, overwrought, palatial, pedantic, pellucid, perspicuous, picturesque, plain, pleasant, pleasing, plush, polished, posh, precieuse, precious, precisian, precisianistic, precisionistic, pretty, pretty-pretty, princely, profitable, proper, proud, pulchritudinous, pure, puristic, rare, recherche, refined, regal, restrained, rich, ritzy, rococo, round, royal, seemly, select, sharp, simpering, simple, skillful, sleek, smart, smooth, smug, snazzy, soigne, soignee, sophisticated, sound, spiffy, splendacious, splendid, splendiferous, spruce, stately, straightforward, style-conscious, stylish, suave, subtle, sumptuous, superb, superfancy, superfine, superior, swank, swanky, swell, tasteful, terse, tricksy, trig, trim, tripping, unaffected, unlabored, urbane, useful, valid, very good, virtuous, well-bred, well-dressed, well-groomed, with it
elegant adj.
[common; from mathematical usage] Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than ?clever?, ?winning?, or even cuspy.
The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry, probably best known for his classic children's book The Little Prince, was also an aircraft designer. He gave us perhaps the best definition of engineering elegance when he said ?A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.?
elegant
(From Mathematics) Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than "clever", "winning" or even cuspy.
The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery, probably best known for his classic children's book "The Little Prince", was also an aircraft designer. He gave us perhaps the best definition of engineering elegance when he said "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
(1994-11-29)
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