Meaning
A deliberately formal and often humorous way of saying that one has had enough to eat or drink and is politely declining another helping. Usually said with affectionate humour or mock grandeur. The longer rhyming form is a playful elaboration rather than a rule of etiquette. Regional use: General English, with especially strong family and dining-table traditions in Britain, Ireland, North America, and Australia.
Origin
The wording 'an elegant sufficiency' appears in James Thomson's poem Spring in 1728, although there it was not about food. Research discussed by the British Library traces the polite table formula to about 1840, when elaborate responses to offers of more food became fashionable and attracted playful rhyming additions. The expression then travelled through families in Britain and several other countries, often remembered as something said by a grandparent. Its dining sense grew from etiquette and humorous formality, not from a single documented dinner or speaker.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- An elegant sufficiency, and any more would be superfluity
- Elegant sufficiency
- I've had an elegant sufficiency
Usage Examples
- When her host offered another slice, Mina smiled and said she had enjoyed an elegant sufficiency.
- After two generous courses, an elegant sufficiency was the only possible answer to seconds.
- Grandad called it an elegant sufficiency whenever he was comfortably full.