svelte

Adjective

svelte (comparative svelter, superlative sveltest)

1. Attractively thin; gracefully slender.
   • Psychoanalytic theory[…]seemed to promise to introduce a certain becoming amplitude into discussions of what different people are like — only to turn, in its streamlined trajectory across so many institutional boundaries, into the sveltest of metatheoretical disciplines, sleeked down to such...1990, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet, published 2008, page 24
   • Clearly the producers of “The Producers” were so little inclined to tinker with a winning formula that they chose not to excise a few lines of dialogue to accommodate the svelter physique of their new leading man, preposterous though it is that anyone in a fit of pique would deride a fellow as...2007 January 19, Charles Isherwood, “Welterweight Bialystock Treads Softly on Big Shtick”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022

   Synonyms:

   lithe

2. Refined, delicate.
   • Peering down from the cockpit at grazing elephant, you have the feeling that what you are beholding is wonderful, but not authentic. It is not only incongruous in the sense that animals simply are not as big as trees, but also in the sense that the twentieth century, tidy and svelte with stainless...1942, Beryl Markham, West with the Night
   • At 61, Bryant looks good – smart and svelte in an electric blue suit, youthful, a full head of hair except for a white scar at the back that looks like a side door into his brain.2023 August 5, Simon Hattenstone, “Labour MP Chris Bryant on cleaning up parliament, and why he’s not afraid to pick a fight: ‘I’ve got in more scrapes than most people’”, in The Guardian, archived...

   Synonyms:

   elegant, gentle