inelegant
adjective
Simple meaning
Not elegant; not exhibiting neatness, refinement.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihnehluhguhntSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪˈnɛləɡənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Not elegant; not exhibiting neatness, refinement, or precision.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Not elegant; not exhibiting neatness, refinement, or precision.
Used this way, inelegant is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This sense is about measurement, so it is used where accuracy is the point.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Careful and exacting
- Usage feel
- Precise and approving
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
- Academic writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: not elegant
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.