優雅 / 优雅
yōuyǎ
To say graceful in Chinese, use 優雅 / 优雅 (yōuyǎ). If unsure, use 優雅 / 优雅. Wiktionary also lists 優美 / 优美 (yōuměi).
Meaning: showing grace (adj)
Ways to say it
| Chinese | Romanization (Wiktionary) |
|---|---|
| 優雅 / 优雅 | yōuyǎ |
| 優美 / 优美 | yōuměi |
优雅 is the general word for gracefulness, covering elegance and beauty in manners or movements.
What does it mean word for word?
優 (yōu) means excellent or superior, and 雅 (yǎ) means elegant or refined.
Which one should you use?
優雅 usually describes a person's manner, temperament or a sophisticated lifestyle. 優美 (yōuměi) focuses on visual or rhythmic beauty, such as a dance, a landscape or art. 文雅 (wén yǎ) describes someone refined and cultured, 举止高雅 (jǔ zhǐ gāo yǎ) means graceful in one's behavior and 风度翩翩 (fēng dù piān piān) describes someone elegant, suave and full of poise.
How does it change in a sentence?
When 優雅 describes a person as a predicate adjective, it is common to put 很 (hěn) before it, as in 很优雅, even when you do not strictly mean very.
How do you pronounce it?
In pinyin it is yōuyǎ.
Did you know?
- To describe a graceful movement, Chinese speakers often use 優美, which shares a root with 美 ('měi'). This character can be broken down into components meaning 'big' and 'sheep', as fat sheep were once symbols of beauty and prosperity.
- The character 雅 ('yǎ') was originally the name of a specific style of ancient poetry and music used in the court of the Zhou dynasty.
- The phrase 风度翩翩 uses the character 翩 ('piān'), which specifically describes the light, fluttering motion of a butterfly or a bird in flight.
Example sentences for Chinese are not verified yet.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “graceful” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
