svelte

American  

[svelt, sfelt] / svɛlt, sfɛlt /

adjective

svelter, sveltest

1. slender, especially gracefully slender in figure; lithe.

2. suave; blandly urbane.

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svelte British  

/ sfɛlt, svɛlt /

adjective

1. attractively or gracefully slim; slender

2. urbane or sophisticated

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Etymology

Origin of svelte

1810–20; < French < Italian svelto < Vulgar Latin *exvellitus pulled out (replacing Latin ēvulsus, past participle of ēvellere ), equivalent to Latin ex- ex- ¹ + velli-, variant stem of vellere to pull, pluck + -tus past participle suffix

Explanation

Svelte means slender. It's used to describe people, not things, and it implies a certain elegance. You might say that a middle-aged woman who had kept a svelte figure could still pass for a sixteen-year-old girl. Svelte came to English from the French, back in the 19th century when the French had the last word on fashion, which probably accounts for its associations with elegance. It has nothing to do with the word sweltering, which means hot enough to make you sweat.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

svelte svelter sveltest

They are a triumph of engineering, squeezing a fighter pilot helmet’s worth of optics and computing into frames that, while not exactly svelte, at least don’t require a chin strap.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026

Typically a svelte 75-minute show, on the night I saw the production it swelled to about two hours, allowing time for drinks, mingling and, of course, the eating of a quiche.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2026

Why do some dog breeds struggle to stay svelte?

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 8, 2024

Experts have unearthed numerous fossils of the svelte tyrannosaur, including some relatively complete skeletons, with the adults reaching more than 26 feet in length and weighing more than two tons in life.

From National Geographic ● Dec. 8, 2023

Before Citra left home, Mrs. Yeltner had reset her lipid point to svelte.

From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman

The result has a lot in common with the now-discontinued Oculus Go, but with a svelter look and upgrades like the inside-out camera tracking.

From The Verge ● Oct. 14, 2021

But the experience for the slightly svelter rodents involved a lot of shivering until their bodies adjusted by building up body-warming, calorie-burning brown fat.

From Slate ● Apr. 17, 2019

Its success led to a 1900 remake, featuring svelter characters.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 12, 2019

Ugo Ihemelu -- The Nigerian-born Ihemelu is the svelter of the two Dallas center backs, so I'm figuring he gets paired up with Seattle's DP forward most often.

From Seattle Times ● May 25, 2011

I watched with the profoundest satisfaction as five days of grime ran down my legs and out the drainhole, and noticed with astonished gratitude that my body had taken on a noticeably svelter profile.

From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson

From an early age she aspired to be a ballet dancer, and, though never the sveltest girl en point, at 16 she landed a job in the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall.

From New York Times ● Aug. 30, 2019

But the Lifter is not the sveltest of vessels — just 10 feet narrower than the 110-foot locks themselves — and required the finesse of a Panama Canal Authority pilot to thread the needle.

From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2014

Beyond income, it was the sveltest, splashiest, most scrambled-after social affair that the nation's capital has seen in many years.

From Time Magazine Archive

Sir Max, one of the keenest wits and sveltest exquisites of the 1890s, came into the late Victorian world when Oscar Wilde was just a lily-loving boy and Dante Gabriel Rossetti a doddering gaffer.

From Time Magazine Archive

Related Words

• graceful
• lithe
• slender