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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Elegant \El"e*gant\, adjective [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.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
elegant
adjective
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 adjective [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)
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