INELEGANCE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does inelegance mean? 

• INELEGANCE (noun)
  The noun INELEGANCE has 1 sense:

1. the quality of lacking refinement and good taste

  Familiarity information: INELEGANCE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INELEGANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of lacking refinement and good taste

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("inelegance" is a kind of...):

quality (an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inelegance"):

awkwardness; clumsiness; gracelessness; stiffness (the inelegance of someone stiff and unrelaxed (as by embarrassment))

dowdiness; drabness; homeliness (having a drab or dowdy quality; lacking stylishness or elegance)

manginess; seediness; shabbiness; sleaziness (a lack of elegance as a consequence of wearing threadbare or dirty clothing)

tweediness (an informal, homely, outdoor look characteristic of those who wear tweeds)

coarseness; commonness; grossness; raunch; vulgarism; vulgarity (the quality of lacking taste and refinement)

crudeness; roughness (an unpolished unrefined quality)

boorishness; uncouthness (inelegance by virtue of being an uncouth boor)

inflation; ostentation; ostentatiousness; pomposity; pompousness; pretentiousness; puffiness; splashiness (lack of elegance as a consequence of being pompous and puffed up with vanity)

tastelessness (inelegance indicated by a lack of good taste)

Antonym:

elegance (a refined quality of gracefulness and good taste)

Derivation:

inelegant (lacking in refinement or grace or good taste)

 Context examples 

Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough; his indifference to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of mind.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)