WORD NOTE
elegant
I like the subtle sense of economy that elegant imparts to what otherwise might be just a synonym for graceful. When you say that a fastball or a legal brief or a dance move is elegant, you’re saying that you admire not just its beauty but also its efficiency—that it gets the job done with surprisingly few wasted components or motions, and even with an ingenious shortcut or two. This is one of those words I like so much that I have to stop myself from overusing it.