Etymology
Origin of inelegance
First recorded in 1720–30; ineleg(ant) + -ance
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Once a showcase of American power, the Oval Office has now become a shrine to inelegance.
From Salon • Jan. 4, 2026
To transmute such willful inelegance into high art would be a miracle indeed.
From New York Times • Jan. 22, 2024
“Teach me how to not be afraid,” the clergyman, a composite figure of several acquaintances, asks Rustin, a line emblematic of the film’s occasional inelegance.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 3, 2023
Her recent building for St Anthony’s college in Oxford, , meanwhile, smashes into its historic neighbour with the same thuggish inelegance as her Serpentine Sackler Centre does in London.
From The Guardian • Mar. 31, 2016
And as it was, the charge of gross carelessness and inelegance lay at her door; a charge above others that she was unwilling to bear.
From Trading by Warner, Susan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
