svelte means attractively thin; gracefully slender. It carries an Arena rating of 1645, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, svelte ranks #686 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,238 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,659 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #2,187 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words.
svelte is pronounced /ˈsvɛlt/.
Why “svelte” is a great word
Attractively or gracefully slender in form, a word derived from French svelte, tracing back to Italian svelto ("stretched out, slim"), the past participle of svellere ("to pluck out, root out"), from Vulgar Latin *exvellere, itself from Latin ex- ("out") and vellere ("to pluck, stretch"), first attested in English in 1817. Unlike "skinny," which implies a gaunt or undernourished austerity, or "lanky," which suggests an ungainly, stretched awkwardness, "svelte" speaks of a cultivated and proportionate elegance. It is the silhouette of a willow against a twilight sky, the clean taper of a crystal flute, the line of a greyhound in effortless motion—a word that carries within it not mere thinness, but the quiet poise of economy, as if some inner tension had been smoothed into line, leaving only what is necessary.
Etymology
Borrowed from French svelte, from Italian svelto (“stretched out”), past participle of svellere (“to pluck out, root out”), from Vulgar Latin *exvellere, from ex + vellere (“to pluck, stretch”).
adj
- Attractively thin; gracefully slender.
- Refined, delicate.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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