concinnity

Word of the Day for Thursday, October 12, 2006

concinnity \kuhn-SIN-uh-tee\, noun: 1. Internal harmony or fitness in the adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other. 2. Studied elegance of design or arrangement — used chiefly of literary style. 3. An instance of concinnity.

He has what one character calls “the gifts of concinnity and concision,” that deft swipe with a phrase that can be so devastating in children. – Elizabeth Ward Denis Donoghue is a primary critic of our time, catholic in scope, unique in literary apprehension, crucially gratifying in the clear concinnity of his prose. – Ihab Hassan Even so, rules are not merely there to be ignored; in fact, they constitute a democratic aristocracy based not on Debrett’s Peerage or the Almanach de Gotha but on the user’s respect for comprehensibility, consistency, concision and concinnity — or, simply, elegance. – John Simon, “House Rules”, New York Times, October 31, 1999

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