elegant
AdjectiveOpen English WordNet
Adjective (3)
- 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”Opposite inelegantSimilar fine, dandified, ritzy, deluxe, high-class, exquisite, soigneSee also dignified, graceful, refined, sophisticated, tasteful
- suggesting taste, ease, and wealthSynonyms: gracefulrefinedOpposite ungraciousSimilar gracious
- displaying effortless beauty and simplicity in movement or execution“an elegant dancer”“an elegant mathematical solution — simple and precise”Opposite awkwardSimilar graceful
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Translations
Adjective exhibiting elegance
The main translation for each meaning, from the langtolang.com multilingual dictionary. Each word links to its full entry there.
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: L. elegans, -antis; akin to eligere to pick out, choose, select: cf. F. élégant. 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.— William Hickling Prescott
2. Exercising a nice choice; discriminating beauty or sensitive to beauty; as, elegant taste.
Synonyms: Tasteful; polished; graceful; refined; comely; handsome; richly ornamental.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
(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)
The Jargon File
[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-Exupéry, 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.”