a. | 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; |
2. | Exercising a nice choice; discriminating beauty or sensitive to beauty; |
Adj. | 1. | elegant - 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" Antonyms: inelegant - lacking in refinement or grace or good taste |
2. | elegant - suggesting taste, ease, and wealth | |
3. | elegant - of seemingly effortless beauty in form or proportion | |
4. | elegant - refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court; "a courtly gentleman" |
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." |