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Elegant.
Printed beside the dynamic or attached to a tempo word in a heading, typically for light, dance-like music. It holds until the next tempo or character direction; con eleganza is the noun-phrase equivalent.
Elegante asks for polish and poise: clean phrasing, light accents, refined rubato if any. It differs from grazioso in temperature — grace is warm and charming, elegance cooler and more composed. It suits minuets, waltzes and neo-classical writing. Avoid it where you also want abandon or weight, and give it a dynamic, since elegance can be loud as well as soft.
Elegante is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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