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)

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)
 

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]

Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
 

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

Source: Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
 

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: graceful, refined]
3: of seemingly effortless beauty in form or proportion
4: refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court; "a courtly gentleman" [syn: courtly, formal, stately]

Source: WordNet (r) 2.0
 

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.

A more diligent cultivation of elegant literature. --Prescott.

2. Exercising a nice choice; discriminating beauty or sensitive to beauty; as, elegant taste.

Syn: Tasteful; polished; graceful; refined; comely; handsome; richly ornamental.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)