elegance
noun/ˈɛl.ɪ.ɡəns/
Etymology From Middle French élégance, from Latin ēlegantia (“exquisiteness; refinement, elegance”).
1
Usually Grace, refinement, and beauty in movement, appearance, or manners.
- The bride was elegance personified.
2
Usually Restraint and grace of style.
- The simple dress had a quiet elegance.
3
Usually The beauty of an idea characterized by minimalism and intuitiveness while preserving exactness and precision.
- The proof of the theorem had a pleasing elegance.
4
Dated, Usually A refinement or luxury.
- As to the comforts and elegances of life, we have enough of them for our good.1852, Various, Young Americans Abroad:
- At Rome, when Sallust was the fashionable writer, short sentences, uncommon words, and an obscure brevity, were affected as so many elegances.1881, Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1:
1 more example
- Phineas Duge[…] was, for a man of affairs and an American, singularly fond of the small elegances of life. Although he sat alone at dinner, the table was heaped with choice flowers and carefully selected hothouse fruit.1909, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 10, in The Governors:
- Derived terms
- creeping elegance, elegancy, overelegance, piss-elegance, superelegance
- Related terms
- elegant