Elegant

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: el=e=gant

CIDE DICTIONARY

Elegant, a. [L. elegans, -antis; akin to eligere to pick out, choose, select: cf. F. élégant. See Elect.].

•  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."  [1913 Webster]
•  Exercising a nice choice; discriminating beauty or sensitive to beauty; as, elegant taste.

Syn. -- Tasteful; polished; graceful; refined; comely; handsome; richly ornamental.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Elegant, 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.

Derivative

elegance n. elegantly adv.

Etymology

F {eacute}l{eacute}gant or L elegant-, rel. to eligere: see ELECT

THESAURUS

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

ROGET THESAURUS

Elegant

Elegance

N elegance, purity, grace, ease, gracefulness, readiness, concinnity, euphony, numerosity, Atticism, classicalism, classicism, well rounded periods, well turned periods, flowing periods, the right word in the right place, antithesis, purist, elegant, polished, classical, Attic, correct, Ciceronian, artistic, chaste, pure, Saxon, academical, graceful, easy, readable, fluent, flowing, tripping, unaffected, natural, unlabored, mellifluous, euphonious, euphemism, euphemistic, numerose, rhythmical, felicitous, happy, neat, well put, neatly put, well expressed, neatly expressed.

Beauty

N beauty, the beautiful, to kalon, le beau ideal, aesthetics, callaesthetics, pulchritude, form, elegance, grace, beauty unadorned, natural beauty, symmetry, comeliness, fairness, polish, gloss, good effect, good looks, belle tournure, trigness, bloom, brilliancy, radiance, splendor, gorgeousness, magnificence, sublimity, sublimification, concinnity, delicacy, refinement, charm, je ne sais quoi, style, Venus, Aphrodite, Hebe, the Graces, Peri, Houri, Cupid, Apollo, Hyperion, Adonis, Antionous, Narcissus, peacock, butterfly, garden, flower of, pink of, bijou, jewel, work of art, flower, flow'ret gay, wildflower, rose, lily, anemone, asphodel, buttercup, crane's bill, daffodil, tulip, tiger lily, day lily, begonia, marigold, geranium, lily of the valley, ranunculus, rhododendron, windflower, pleasurableness, beautifying, landscaping, landscape gardening, decoration, calisthenics, beauty, hunk (of men), beautiful, beauteous, handsome, gorgeous, pretty, lovely, graceful, elegant, prepossessing, attractive, delicate, dainty, refined, fair, personable, comely, seemly, bonny, good-looking, well-favored, well-made, well-formed, well- proportioned, proper, shapely, symmetrical, harmonious, sightly, fit to be seen, passable, not amiss, goodly, dapper, tight, jimp, gimp, janty, jaunty, trig, natty, quaint, trim, tidy, neat, spruce, smart, tricksy, bright, bright eyed, rosy cheeked, cherry cheeked, rosy, ruddy, blooming, in full bloom, brilliant, shining, beamy, beaming, sparkling, splendid, resplendent, dazzling, glowing, glossy, sleek, rich, superb, magnificent, grand, fine, sublime, showy, specious, artistic, artistical, aesthetic, picturesque, pictorial, fait a peindre, well-composed, well grouped, well varied, curious, enchanting becoming, ornamental, undeformed, undefaced, unspotted, spotless, auxilium non leve vultus habet, beauty born of murmuring sound, flowers preach to us if we will hear, gratior ac pulchro veniens in corpore virtus, none but the brave deserve the fair, thou who hast the fatal gift of beauty.

Taste

N taste, good taste, refined taste, cultivated taste, delicacy, refinement, fine feeling, gust, gusto, tact, finesse, nicety, to prepon, polish, elegance, grace, judgment, discernment, dilettantism, dilettanteism, virtu, fine art, culture, cultivation, aesthetics, man of taste, connoisseur, judge, critic, conoscente, virtuoso, amateur, dilettante, Aristarchus, Corinthian, arbiter elegantiarum, stagirite, euphemist, caviare to the general, in good taste, cute, tasteful, tasty, unaffected, pure, chaste, classical, attic, cultivated, refined, dainty, esthetic, aesthetic, artistic, elegant, euphemistic, to one's taste, to one's mind, after one's fancy, comme il faut, tire a quatre epingles, elegantly, nihil tetigit quod non ornavit, chacun a son gout, oculi pictura tenentur aures cantibus, taste, flavor, gust, gusto, savor, gout, relish, sapor, sapidity, twang, smack, smatch, aftertaste, tang, tasting, degustation, gustation, palate, tongue, tooth, stomach, sapid, saporific, gustable, gustatory, gustful, strong, gamy, palatable.