Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Elegant

Elegant , adjective

[Latin elegans, -antis; akin to eligere to pick out, choose, select: compare French 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.