inelegant
/ɪnˈɛlɪɡənt/adjective
inelegant is an adjective meaning “Not elegant; not exhibiting neatness, refinement, or precision” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled I-N-E-L-E-G-A-N-T, and it appears about once in every 8 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does inelegant mean?
adjective
- 1
Not elegant; not exhibiting neatness, refinement, or precision.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce inelegant?
- /ɪnˈɛlɪɡənt/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-inelegant.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of inelegant
- more inelegant comparative
- most inelegant superlative
- unelegant
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is inelegant?
Inelegant appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 82,325th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Inelegant in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense not elegant:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | inélégant |
| Portuguese | deselegante, inelegante |
| Spanish | inelegante |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does inelegant come from?
From Middle French inélégant, from Latin inēlegāns; equivalent to in- + elegant.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).