elegant Meaning, Definition & Usage

adjective 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
adjective satellite suggesting taste, ease, and wealth
refined; graceful.
adjective satellite displaying effortless beauty and simplicity in movement or execution
- an elegant dancer
- an elegant mathematical solution -- simple and precise

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.
A more diligent cultivation of elegant literature. Prescott.
Exercising a nice choice; discriminating beauty or sensitive to beauty; as, elegant taste. Syn. -- Tasteful; polished; graceful; refined; comely; handsome; richly ornamental.