graceful
- 1Showing grace in the way something moves, is shaped, or is proportioned.
Her graceful movements made the difficult routine look effortless.
The bridge's graceful arch curves over the river with quiet elegance.
Similarelegant
Note
Built plainly in Middle English from grace and -ful, it praises lines as readily as motion. Margery Allingham's The China Governess (1963) gives it to the cane half-tester of a carved white bed, rising toward the cornice. Furniture, arches and handwriting can all be graceful. Airy is a close neighbor that stresses lightness. The word compares with more and most: more graceful, most graceful.
- 2Generous and gracious in manner, free from arrogance or complaint.
Her graceful response to harsh criticism won her many admirers.
The champion remained graceful after the loss, praising each of her rivals.
Similargracious, dignified, magnanimous, sportsmanlike
Oppositeungracious, petty
Note
Here the grace is in conduct rather than in limbs. The word typically praises how someone takes a setback or a disputed outcome, as in a graceful acceptance of a controversial second place. Its near twin is gracious. Graceful keeps a trace of the dancer's ease, suggesting composure that looks effortless even when it is not.
- 3Proceeding gradually and without disruption, especially as a system changes state or fails.
The network handles failures in a graceful manner, rerouting traffic without downtime.
A graceful degradation lets the website keep working even when some features fail.
Similarsmooth, orderly, seamless
Oppositeabrupt
Note
A systems term that lives in fixed pairings such as graceful shutdown and graceful degradation. The contrast is always with an abrupt stop. Dale Liu's Cisco Router and Switch Forensics (2009) notes that Windows and Linux both require a graceful shutdown, which preserves the operating system and log files even though the volatile contents of RAM are still destroyed.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English graceful, formed from grace plus the suffix -ful.