4 uses
- Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well.Chapters 1-3 — Loomings; The Carpet-Bag; The Spouter-Inn (76% in)
- I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent public of schoolboys.Chapters 55-57 — Monstrous Pictures of Whales; Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales; Whales in Paint.... (24% in)
- As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared to a Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly rounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale's head bears a rather inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe.Chapters 73-75 — Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; The Sperm Whale's Head, The Right Whale's Head (76% in)
- One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous "whiskers" inside of the whale's mouth;* another, "hogs' bristles"; a third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language: "There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his upper CHOP, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth."Chapters 73-75 — Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; The Sperm Whale's Head, The Right Whale's Head (89% in)
There are no more uses of "elegant" in Moby Dick.
Typical Usage
(best examples)