graceful
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English
Alternative forms
- gracefull (archaic)
Etymology
From Middle English graceful; equivalent to grace + -ful.
Pronunciation
Adjective
graceful (comparative more graceful, superlative most graceful)
- Having or showing grace in movement, shape, or proportion.
- Hyponym: dexterous
- She is a graceful dancer.
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
- The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. […] The bed was the most extravagant piece. Its graceful cane halftester rose high towards the cornice and was so festooned in carved white wood that the effect was positively insecure, as if the great couch were trimmed with icing sugar.
- Magnanimous, lacking arrogance or complaint; gracious.
- The athlete's graceful acceptance of the controversial second-place finish won the admiration of the spectators.
- (computing) Gradual and non-disruptive.
- 2009, Dale Liu, Cisco Router and Switch Forensics:
- Bringing a system down cleanly will preserve the operating system and some log files, but again will destroy the contents of the RAM (the volatile data). Windows and Linux are two operating systems that require a graceful shutdown.
Antonyms
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
showing grace
See also
Middle English
Etymology
Pronunciation
Adjective
graceful
- (rare, Late Middle English) Giving grace; grace-inducing.
- (rare, Late Middle English) nice, kindly
Descendants
References
- “grāceful, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-14.
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English adjectives suffixed with -ful
- English 2-syllable words
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- English adjectives
- English terms with usage examples
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- en:Computing
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- Middle English terms suffixed with -ful
- Middle English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English adjectives
- Middle English terms with rare senses
- Late Middle English