ELEGANT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does elegant mean? 

• ELEGANT (adjective)
  The adjective ELEGANT has 3 senses:

1. refined and tasteful in appearance or behavior or style

2. suggesting taste, ease, and wealth

3. displaying effortless beauty and simplicity in movement or execution

  Familiarity information: ELEGANT used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ELEGANT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Refined and tasteful in appearance or behavior or style

Context example:

an elegant mathematical solution--simple and precise and lucid

Similar:

dandified; dandyish; foppish (affecting extreme elegance in dress and manner)

de luxe; deluxe; luxe (elegant and sumptuous)

fine (characterized by elegance or refinement or accomplishment)

high-class; high-toned (pretentiously elegant)

exquisite; recherche (lavishly elegant and refined)

ritzy (luxuriously elegant)

soigne; soignee (polished and well-groomed; showing sophisticated elegance)

Also:

dignified (having or expressing dignity; especially formality or stateliness in bearing or appearance)

graceful (characterized by beauty of movement, style, form, or execution)

refined ((used of persons and their behavior) cultivated and genteel)

sophisticated (having or appealing to those having worldly knowledge and refinement and savoir-faire)

tasteful (having or showing or conforming to good taste)

Antonym:

inelegant (lacking in refinement or grace or good taste)

Derivation:

elegance (a refined quality of gracefulness and good taste)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Suggesting taste, ease, and wealth

Synonyms:

elegant; graceful; refined

Similar:

gracious (characterized by charm, good taste, and generosity of spirit)

Derivation:

elegance (a refined quality of gracefulness and good taste)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Displaying effortless beauty and simplicity in movement or execution

Context example:

an elegant mathematical solution -- simple and precise

Similar:

graceful (characterized by beauty of movement, style, form, or execution)

Derivation:

elegance (a quality of neatness and ingenious simplicity in the solution of a problem (especially in science or mathematics))

 Context examples 

You are a dear to lend me yours, Jo. I feel so rich and sort of elegant, with two new pairs, and the old ones cleaned up for common.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“I like your Miss Bertrams exceedingly, sister,” said he, as he returned from attending them to their carriage after the said dinner visit; “they are very elegant, agreeable girls.”

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

A style of living almost equal to Maple Grove—and as to the children, except the little Sucklings and little Bragges, there are not such elegant sweet children anywhere.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Elizabeth was certainly very handsome, with well-bred, elegant manners, and her character might never have been penetrated by Mr Elliot, knowing her but in public, and when very young himself.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term minois chiffone: both sisters were fair as lilies.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I never in my life saw anything more elegant than their dresses.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The day was unmarked therefore by anything to interest her imagination beyond the sight of a very elegant monument to the memory of Mrs. Tilney, which immediately fronted the family pew.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I roused myself, and looked about me in the room where I was left alone: this was furnished like the first, only after a more elegant manner.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He would certainly have done more justice to simple and elegant prose.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

“I never heard anything so elegant!” said Miss Murdstone.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)