Adjacent Words

Elegant definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

EL'EGANT, a. [L. elegans.] Polished; polite; refined; graceful; pleasing to good taste; as elegant manners.
1. Polished, neat; pure; rich in expressions; correct in arrangement; as an elegant style or composition.
2. Uttering or delivering elegant language with propriety and grace; as an elegant speaker.
3. Symmetrical; regular; well formed in its parts, proportions and distribution; as an elegant structure.
4. Nice; sensible to beauty; discriminating beauty from deformity or imperfection; as an elegant taste. [This is a loose application of the word; elegant being used for delicate.]
5. Beautiful in form and colors; pleasing; as an elegant flower.
6. Rich; costly and ornamental; as elegant furniture or equipage.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

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"

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin elegant-, elegans; akin to Latin eligere to select — more at elect Date: 15th century 1. marked by elegance <elegant clothes> <an elegant solution> 2. of a high grade or quality ; splendid <elegant gems priced at hundreds of thousands of dollars> Synonyms: see choice • elegantly adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 graceful in appearance or manner. 2 tasteful, refined. 3 (of a mode of life etc.) of refined luxury. 4 ingeniously simple and pleasing. 5 US excellent. Derivatives: elegance n. elegantly adv. Etymology: F élégant or L elegant-, rel. to eligere: see ELECT

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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. A more diligent cultivation of elegant literature. --Prescott. 2. Exercising a nice choice; discriminating beauty or sensitive to beauty; as, elegant taste. Syn: Tasteful; polished; graceful; refined; comely; handsome; richly ornamental.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. If you describe a person or thing as elegant, you mean that they are pleasing and graceful in appearance or style. Patricia looked beautiful and elegant as always. ...an elegant restaurant. = stylish ADJ • elegance ...Princess Grace's understated elegance... N-UNCOUNT • elegantly ...a tall, elegantly dressed man with a mustache. ADV 2. If you describe a piece of writing, an idea, or a plan as elegant, you mean that it is simple, clear, and clever. The document impressed me with its elegant simplicity. ADJ • elegantly ...an elegantly simple idea. ADV

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Graceful, beautiful, handsome, fine, symmetrical, classical, tasteful, chaste, neat, well-made, well-proportioned, in good taste. 2. Polished, refined, accomplished, cultivated, polite, genteel, courtly, fashionable.

Moby Thesaurus

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