elegant, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

elegant adj.

excellent, first-rate.

1764		J. Blair Account Coll. New-Jersey (1844) 8/1: The college had...‘an elegant hall of genteel workmanship’, 40 foot square .
1817		M. Birkbeck Notes on Journey in America 152: You hear of an elegant mill, an elegant orchard, an elegant tan-yard, &c. and familiarly of elegant roads, meaning such as you may pass without extreme peril. The word implies elegibility or usefulness in America, but has nothing to do with taste .
1822		J. Woods Two Years Residence in Illinois 44: This negro said, some very elegant potatoes grew on this land last year.
1834		in The Parterre of Poetry I 176/1: ‘A family dinner is a mighty plisant thing. What have ye got?’ ‘Och, nothing by common. Just an iligant pace of corned beef and potatoes.’.
1860		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (3rd edn) 136: Elegant for excellent applied to articles of food and drink, is very common: as elegant water, elegant beef, elegant butter.
1865		M. MacFie Vancouver Island and British Columbia 416: The slang in vogue in the mining regions is imported mainly from California, and is often as expressive as it is original. [...] A good road, [...] boat, plough, dinner, or anything else you please, is ‘elegant.’.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter I 74: ‘I’m mighty glad entirely they’re both gone [...] I thought there was an illegant row brewing’.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Sept. 16/2: First American: ‘I guess you can’t lick those fireworks in your parts.’ First Australian: ‘No fear.’ Second American: ‘You bet.’ Second Australian: ‘My oath.’ Third American: ‘It was real nice.’ Third Australian: ‘I bleeve yer.’ Fourth American: ‘It was just elegant.’ Fourth Australian: ‘First chop.’.
1913–14		Van Loan ‘Out of His Class’ in Taking the Count 183: You’ll have an elegant time – lots of chickens wit’ the troupe.
1923		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 14 Oct. [synd. col.] His last book was called the ‘The Polygeneric Theory’ — and those [...] who understood what it was all about said it was simply elegant.
1935		O.O. McIntyre ‘New York Day by Day’ 8 June [synd. col.] Harry Leon Wilson quit drinking coffee for two years, then one morning downed in a row six cups of hefty brew and did he feel elegant.