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
The sheer sublimity of this sequence — the eerie silence, the stillness and clarity of the image — stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the movie, which is framed with almost defiant inelegance.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 9, 2018
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
I find the poem affecting; I call it a good poem; but the writing has quite a bit of Hardy’s characteristic awkwardness and inelegance.
From Slate • Feb. 12, 2013
Vassie only saw the inelegance, for he was her brother, but to Phoebe his very scorn of dainty ways made him more god-like because more man-like.
From Secret Bread by Jesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
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.
