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The quality of being inelegant; want of elegance or grace; want of refinement, beauty, or polish in language, composition, or manners. The notorious inelegance of her figure. T. Hook.

Not elegant; deficient in beauty, polish, refinement, grave, or ornament; wanting in anything which correct taste requires. What order so contrived as not to mix Tastes, not well joined, inelegant. Milton. It renders style often obscure, always embarrassed and inelegant. Blair.

tter qualified than they to estimate justly the intrinsic value of Grecian philosophy and refinement. I. Taylor.

m, mineral oil, or rock oil. Specifically: That portion of the distillate obtained in the refinement of petroleum which is intermediate between the lighter gasoline and the heavier benzine, and has a specific gravity of about 0.7, -- used as a solvent for varnishes, as a carburetant, illuminant, etc.…

A person deficient in liberal culture and refinement; one without appreciation of the nobler aspirations and sentiments of humanity; one whose scope is limited to selfish and material interests. [Recent] M. Arnold.

Fig.: Refinement; elegance of manners. This Roman polish and this smooth behavior. Addison.

Characterized by refinement, or a high degree of finish; as, polite literature. Macaulay.

The quality or state of being polite; refinement of manners; urbanity; courteous behavior; complaisance; obliging attentions.

Hence, figuratively, lacking refinement, gentleness, or polish. Specifically:

Characterized by roughness; umpolished; raw; lacking delicacy or refinement; coarse. Such gardening tools as art, yet rude, . . . had formed. Milton.

That which is sublimed; the product of a purifying process. Religion is the perfection, refinement, and sublimation of morality. South.

Refinement; subtlety; extreme attenuation.

Refinement; extreme acuteness; subtlety. Intelligible discourses are spoiled by too much subtility in nice divisions. Locke.

Characterized by refinement and niceness in drawing distinctions; nicely discriminating; -- said of persons; as, a subtle logician; refined; tenuous; sinuous; insinuating; hence, penetrative or pervasive; -- said of the mind; its faculties, or its operations; as, a subtle intellect; a subtle imagination; a subtle proce…

Refinement; delicacy.

A cupel or cupelling hearth in which precious metals are melted for trial and refinement. Our ingots, tests, and many mo. Chaucer.

The quality or state of being urbane; civility or courtesy of manners; politeness; refinement. The marquis did the honors of his house with the urbanity of his country. W. Irving.

al critic; a verbal change. And loses, though but verbal, his reward. Milton. Mere verbal refinements, instead of substantial knowledge. Whewell.

Hence, lacking cultivation or refinement; rustic; boorish; also, offensive to good taste or refined feelings; low; coarse; mean; base; as, vulgar men, minds, language, or manners. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Shak. Vulgar fraction. (Arith.) See under Fraction.

Grossness or clownishness of manners of language; absence of refinement; coarseness. The reprobate vulgarity of the frequenters of Bartholomew Fair. B. Jonson.