dots-menu
×

Mawson, C.O.S., ed. (1870–1938). Roget’s International Thesaurus. 1922.

Class IV. Words Relating to the Intellectual Faculties
Division (II) Communication of Ideas
Section III. Means of Communicating Ideas
Various Qualities of Style

578. Elegance.

   NOUN:ELEGANCE, distinction, clarity, purity, grace, felicity, ease; gracefulness, readiness &c. adj.; concinnity, concinnation [rare], euphony; balance, rhythm, symmetry, proportion, taste, good taste, restraint, nice discrimination, propriety, correctness; Attic salt, Atticism, classicalism, classicism.
  well-rounded -, well-turned -, flowing- periods; the right word in the right place; antithesis [See Ornament].
  PURIST, classicist, stylist.
   VERB:FLOW -SMOOTHLY, – with ease; discriminate nicely, display elegance &c. n.; point an antithesis, round a period.
   ADJECTIVE:ELEGANT, polished, classic or classical, classicistic, concinnous [rare], correct, Attic, Ciceronian, artistic; chaste, pure, Saxon, academic or academical.
  graceful, easy, readable, fluent, flowing, tripping; unaffected, natural, unlabored; mellifluous, euphonious; euphemistic; symmetrical, balanced, restrained; rhythmic or rhythmical.
  FELICITOUS, happy, neat; well -, neatly- -put, – expressed.
   QUOTATIONS:
  1. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance.—Pope
  2. Whoever wishes to obtain an English style … must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.—Johnson—Boswell’s Life
  3. Elegant as simplicity.—Cowper