elegant

5 definitions found

elegant - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  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]

elegant - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  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: elegant,
         graceful, refined]
      3: displaying effortless beauty and simplicity in movement or
         execution; "an elegant dancer"; "an elegant mathematical
         solution -- simple and precise"

elegant - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  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)
  

elegant - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  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-Exupery,
     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."
  

elegant - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :

  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