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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



108 words match “ELEGANT”

ELEGANT a. 2 definitions
teness, freedom from blemish, and the like; graceful; tasteful and highly attractive; as, elegant manners; elegant style of composition; an elegant speaker; an elegant structure. A more diligent cultivation of elegant literature. Prescott.
ELEGANTLY adv.
In a manner to please nice taste; with elegance; with due symmetry; richly.
INELEGANT a.
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.
INELEGANTLY adv.
In an inelegant manner.
OVERELEGANT a.
Too elegant. Johnson.
UNELEGANT a.
Inelegant.
ADUMBRATION n.
A faint sketch; an outline; an imperfect portrayal or representation of a thing. Elegant adumbrations of sacred truth. Bp. Horsley.
ALDINE a.
nown by the sign of the anchor and the dolphin. The term has also been applied to certain elegant editions of English works.
ATTIC a.
culiar to the Athenians. -- Attic story. See Attic, n. -- Attic style, a style pure and elegant.
ATTICISM n.
The style and idiom of the Greek language, used by the Athenians; a concise and elegant expression.
ATTIRE v.
To dress; to array; to adorn; esp., to clothe with elegant or splendid garments. Finely attired in a robe of white. Shak. With the linen miter shall he be attired. Lev. xvi. 4.
BADINAGE n.
Playful raillery; banter. "He . . . indulged himself only in an elegant badinage." Warburton.
BALDLY adv.
Nakedly; without reserve; inelegantly.
BARGE n.
A pleasure boat; a vessel or boat of state, elegantly furnished and decorated.
BELLES-LETTRES n.
Polite or elegant literature; the humanities; -- used somewhat vaguely for literary works in which imagination and taste are predominant.
BIJOU n.
A trinket; a jewel; -- a word applied to anything small and of elegant workmanship.
BIRD OF PARADISE n.
genera, inhabiting New Guinea and the adjacent islands. The males have brilliant colors, elegant plumes, and often remarkable tail feathers.
BOUD n.
A small room, esp. if pleasant, or elegantly furnished, to which a lady may retire to be alone, or to receive intimate friends; a lady's (or sometimes a gentleman's) private room. Cowper.
BOUDOIR n.
A small room, esp. if pleasant, or elegantly furnished, to which a lady may retire to be alone, or to receive intimate friends; a lady's (or sometimes a gentleman's) private room. Cowper.
BREVITY n.
ess. Brevity is the soul of wit. Shak. This argument is stated by St. John with his usual elegant brevity and simplicity. Bp. Porteus.
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