Having good or fine taste; nice in taste; fastidious; sensible to beauty or propriety; discriminating beauty from deformity or imperfection: said of persons.Polished; polite; refined; graceful: said of persons: as, an elegant lady or gentleman.Characterized by or pertaining to good taste; indicating a refined propriety of taste: as, elegant manners.Expressed with taste and neatness; correct and polished in expression or arrangement: as, an elegant style of composition; elegant speech.Pleasing to the eye by grace of form or delicacy of color; characterized by exquisiteness of design or fine taste; free from coarseness, blemish, or other defect; refined: as, an elegant figure; an elegant vase; an elegant structure.Pleasing to the mind, as exhibiting fine perception of what is required; calculated to effect its purpose with exceeding accuracy, delicacy, and neatness; exquisitely ingenious or appropriate: as, an elegant modification of a philosophical instrument; an elegant algebraical formula or mathematical demonstration; an elegant chess problem.Synonyms Elegant, Graceful, tasteful, courtly. Elegant implies that anything of an artificial character to which it is applied is the result of training and cultivation through the study of models or ideals of grace; graceful implies less of consciousness, and suggests often a natural gift. A rustic, uneducated girl may be naturally graceful, but not elegant. We speak of elegant manners, composition, furniture, taste, but of a graceful tree, fawn, child; the playful movements of a kitten may be graceful. See beautiful.
