The beautiful wildness of nature, without the nicer elegancies of art.
Spectator.
Syn. -- Elegance, Grace. Elegance implies something of a select style of beauty, which is usually produced by art, skill, or training; as, elegance of manners, composition, handwriting, etc.; elegant furniture; an elegant house, etc. Grace, as the word is here used, refers to bodily movements, and is a lower order of beauty. It may be a natural gift; thus, the manners of a peasant girl may be graceful, but can hardly be called elegant.
El"e*gant (?), a. [L. elegans, -antis; akin to eligere to pick out, choose, select: cf. F. élégant. 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, elegant manners; elegant style of composition; an elegant speaker; an elegant structure.
A more diligent cultivation of elegant literature.
Prescott.
2. Exercising a nice choice; discriminating beauty or sensitive to beauty; as, elegant taste.
Syn. -- Tasteful; polished; graceful; refined; comely; handsome; richly ornamental.
El"e*gant*ly, adv. In a manner to please nice taste; with elegance; with due symmetry; richly.
E*le"gi*ac (?; 277), a. [L. elegiacus, Gr. &?;: cf. F. élégiaque. See Elegy.] 1. Belonging to elegy, or written in elegiacs; plaintive; expressing sorrow or lamentation; as, an elegiac lay; elegiac strains.
Elegiac griefs, and songs of love.
Mrs. Browning.
2. Used in elegies; as, elegiac verse; the elegiac distich or couplet, consisting of a dactylic hexameter and pentameter.
E*le"gi*ac (?), n. Elegiac verse.
El`e*gi"a*cal (?), a. Elegiac.
E*le"gi*ast (?), n. One who composes elegies. Goldsmith.