Elegant means beautiful in a graceful, restrained way. An elegant dress, an elegant building, elegant handwriting.
The restraint is essential: elegance is about what has been left out. In mathematics and engineering, an elegant solution is one that is simple as well as correct, and it is the highest praise available in either field. Note elegance, the noun; elegantly; and that elegant is not the same as fancy — a fancy solution is usually the opposite of an elegant one.
1adjectiveelegantBeautiful in a graceful, restrained way.
“It is an elegant building and impossible to work in.”
2adjectivepleasinglyPleasingly simple and effective.
“The engineer found an elegant solution that fixed the problem with a single small part.”
elegant is a quality of graceful simplicity.
Also accepted in games: stylish
Latin elegans originally meant fastidious or fussy, and it was mildly insulting. Cicero rehabilitated it, and the word has meant tasteful discernment ever since — which is a rare case of a word improving rather than decaying.
Proto-Indo-European
*leǵ-
Latin
ēlegāns
Middle French
elegant
Middle English
elegaunt
English, today
elegant
From Late Middle English elegaunt, from Middle French elegant, ultimately from Latin ēlegāns, collateral form of present participle of ēligere, from ex- + legō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Clothes & Fashion, Everyday Adjectives