sprezzatura means the art of performing a difficult task so gracefully that it looks effortless; calculated nonchalance. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “sprezzatura” is a great word
SPREZZATURA — [Noun] The art of performing a difficult task with such studied grace and nonchalance that it appears effortless. Borrowed from Italian sprezzatura ("nonchalance, disdain"), a term coined by Baldassare Castiglione in 1528, derived from sprezza(re) ("to disdain") + -tura (noun-forming suffix indicating an action or result). Unlike nonchalance, which implies a genuine lack of concern, or virtuosity, which parades its dazzling mechanics, sprezzatura is the conscious performance of art concealed beneath artlessness. It is the dancer’s seamless recovery from a near-stumble, the poet’s offhand delivery of a perfect couplet, or the diplomat’s well-timed joke that defuses a crisis—the consummate craft of making the laborious look languid, a beautiful lie that the labor of excellence is mere play.
noun
- The art of performing a difficult task so gracefully that it looks effortless; calculated nonchalance.“[…] I have found quite a universal rule which in this matter seems to me valid above all others, and in all human affairs whether in word or deed: and that is to avoid affectation in every way possible as though it were some very rough and dangerous reef; and (to pronounce a new word perhaps) to practice in all things a certain sprezzatura [nonchalance]^([sic]), so as to conceal all art and make w”