Elegant Definition - The Meaning of Elegance

This is my personal definition of an elegant person is:

Someone who is gracious and exhibits that through gracious behaviour.

But elegance is more than that. If you look deeping into the meaning and definition of "Elegant" and "Elegance"....(see words made in bold).

Definitions of Elegant, Elegance from Dictionaries

Adjective

1. tastefully fine or luxurious in dress, style, design, etc.: furnishings.

2. gracefully refined and dignified, as in tastes, habits, or literary style: an fine young gentleman.

3. graceful in form or movement: wave of the hand.

4. appropriate to refined taste: a man devoted to elegant pursuits.

5. excellent; fine; superior: an absolutely fine wine.

6. (of scientific, technical, or mathematical theories, solutions, etc.) gracefully concise and simple; admirably succinct.

Synonyms: 1. See fine. 2. polished, 3. courtly.

Related Words

Adjective: beautiful, tasteful

Synonyms: affected, appropriate, apt, aristocratic, artistic, august, chic, choice, classic, clever, comely, courtly, cultivated, cultured, dainty, delicate, dignified, effective, exquisite, fancy, fashionable, fine, genteel, graceful, grand, handsome, ingenious, luxurious, majestic, modish, neat, nice, noble, opulent, ornamented, ornate, ostentatious, overdone, polished, rare, recherché, refined, rich, select, simple, stately, stuffy, stylish, stylized, sumptuous, superior, turgid, well-bred

Origins of the Word

Characterized by or exhibiting refined, tasteful beauty of manner, form, or style.

Webster's definition

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, manners; style of composition; a speaker; a structure. A more diligent cultivation of literature. --Prescott.

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

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

as an adjective

1. refined and tasteful in appearance or behavior or style; "fine handwriting"; "an fine dark suit"; "she was fine to her fingertips";

2. suggesting taste, ease, and wealth

3. displaying effortless beauty and simplicity in movement or execution; "an elegant dancer"; "an elegant mathematical solution -- simple and precise"

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

adj. [common; from mathematical usage]

Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than 'clever', 'winning', or even cuspy.

"Engineering elegance"

The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exupe'ry, 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."

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