Elegant

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  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: {graceful}, {refined}]
       3: of seemingly effortless beauty in form or proportion
       4: refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a
          royal court; "a courtly gentleman" [syn: {courtly}, {formal},
           {stately}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  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
  
  

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  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-Exupe'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."
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  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."
       
          [{Jargon File}]
       
          (1994-11-29)