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elegance

 
Dictionary: el·e·gance   (ĕl'ĭ-gəns) pronunciation
 
n.
    1. Refinement, grace, and beauty in movement, appearance, or manners.
    2. Tasteful opulence in form, decoration, or presentation.
    1. Restraint and grace of style.
    2. Scientific exactness and precision.
  1. Something elegant.

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Thesaurus: elegance
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noun

    Refined, effortless beauty of manner, form, and style: elegancy, grace, polish, urbanity. See beautiful/ugly, style/good style/bad style.

 
Antonyms: elegance
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n

Definition: beauty, taste
Antonyms: crudeness, inelegance, poor taste, roughness, ugliness


 
Word Tutor: elegance
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pronunciation

IN BRIEF: Richness; refinement; gracefulness of style or movement.

pronunciation Knowledge is the only elegance. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and philosopher.

 
Quotes About: Elegance
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Quotes:

"A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace." - Tennessee Williams

"It is not possible for a man to be elegant without a touch of femininity." - Vivienne Westwood

"We must never confuse elegance with snobbery." - Yves Saint-Laurent

"Nothing is more elegant than ready money!" - French Proverb

"For me, elegance is not to pass unnoticed but to get to the very soul of what one is." - Christian Lacroix

"Even the wisest woman you talk to is ignorant of something you may know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

See more famous quotes about Elegance

 
Wikipedia: Elegance
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Elegance is the attribute of being unusually effective and simple. It is frequently used as a standard of tastefulness, particularly in the areas of visual design and decoration. Elegant things exhibit refined grace and dignified propriety.

Some westerners associate elegance with simplicity and consistency of design, focusing on the main or basic features of an object, its dignified gracefulness, or restrained beauty of style.

Others understand the word in an opulent light as in tasteful richness of design or ornamentation "the sumptuous elegance of the furnishings."

The proof of a mathematical theorem is considered to have mathematical elegance if it is surprisingly simple yet effective and constructive; similarly, a computer program or algorithm is elegant if it uses a small amount of intuitive code to great effect[1][2].

In engineering, a solution may be considered elegant if it uses a non-obvious method to produce a solution which is highly effective and simple. An elegant solution may solve multiple problems at once, especially problems not thought to be inter-related.[3]

In chemistry, chemists always look for elegance as well as utility in synthesis[4].

Visual stimuli are frequently considered elegant if a small number of colors and stimuli are used, emphasizing the remainder.

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
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