How to Use élan in a Sentence

élan

noun
  • The dancer performed with great élan.
  • But Gallatin cut with an elan that would have pleased Paul Ryan.
    — Roger Lowenstein, WSJ, 19 Aug. 2018
  • Feeling that shift toward greater openness helped relieve me from the weight of the Parisian elan.
    — Lindsey Tramuta, Glamour, 22 Sep. 2017
  • Woods still looks great, the gold standard for striding the links with athletic elan, but the beauty is skin deep.
    — Scott Ostler, SFChronicle.com, 7 Aug. 2020
  • This is someone with the elan to take Ku Klux Klan robes and turn them a fashion show.
    — Mary Carole McCauley, baltimoresun.com, 21 July 2017
  • And that kind of sucks for the United States, who have come to expect some style and elan from their spin zone.
    — Stephen Rodrick, Variety, 16 June 2023
  • Garoppolo has the talent, smarts, and elan to be an elite quarterback someday.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Feb. 2020
  • The performance’s ferocity was matched by its technical elan.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 22 Oct. 2019
  • Oval watches aren’t exactly rare, but they rarely have been executed with such elan and sophistication.
    — Allen Farmelo, Robb Report, 9 May 2024
  • With the white-tablecloth elan of a high-end steakhouse, Fogo de Chão is nevertheless fine with your shorts, your hat and your baby stroller.
    — Mike Sutter, San Antonio Express-News, 11 Nov. 2021
  • Cotton-linen blends have the advantage of being slightly less see-through than full linen shirts and will crease a little less, but a linen shirt has a certain elan that can’t be beat in the heat.
    — Tori Latham, Robb Report, 13 Mar. 2023
  • Kent typically played the game with the joy and elan of a state highway patrolman – mustache and all – yet something remarkable happened on this night.
    — Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 10 June 2019
  • Orbiting her is a polished ensemble of singer-actors, who handle the nearly two dozen solo and choral numbers with the requisite elan.
    — Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2022
  • In the first two acts, female dancers (choreographed with elan by Marjorie Folkman) were attired like Degas’s dancing girls.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 17 June 2019
  • Chucho and Correa become good friends as well, as the principal is won over by the new teacher’s creativity, commitment and elan.
    — Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times, 3 Nov. 2023
  • Paired with oversized Swarovski jewels and a punky new hair cut [link to beauty story], her latest outfit lends Parisienne elan a new attitude.
    — Janelle Okwodu, Vogue, 16 Jan. 2018
  • Few working journalists have written history with as much elan and narrative force as the British author Paul Johnson, who died this week at age 94.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 13 Jan. 2023
  • The one musician who captured Heggie’s dramatic gestures was cellist Andrew Shulman, who dug into his part with elan and lyricism.
    — Christian Hertzog, sandiegouniontribune.com, 4 June 2017
  • Davis falls for the elan of Paris, an artsy city where a black man is an equal, while Cocteau sneers at the shallowness of America, with its worship of productivity over pondering.
    — Karen D'souza, The Mercury News, 12 Apr. 2017
  • At Marvel, Lee brought jazzy verve with his dialogue, Kirby a promethean cosmic imagination, and Ditko an idiosyncratic visual elan.
    — Jeet Heer, The New Republic, 7 July 2018
  • Back then at the turn of the century virtually no other talented writers outside of niche metal publications were taking this music seriously, let alone writing about it with such elan.
    — Matt Wake | [email protected], al, 9 Feb. 2022
  • While champagne is always appropriate for a Royal Wedding watch, cocktails provide a certain elan that's appropriately British.
    — Greg Morago, Houston Chronicle, 18 May 2018
  • Other pianists, young and old, may produce more keyboard accuracy and technical elan, but few convey the spirit and sensibility of pre-jazz and early jazz idioms as authentically as Helfer.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 14 Feb. 2018
  • Schwartzman, though, is comic gold as an inappropriate inlaw while Sessa brightens things up as a broken-hearted sop who insinuates himself with all the elan of a Lab puppy into the neighbor’s next door household.
    — Randy Myers, Mercury News, 3 Dec. 2025
  • Izzy exuded effortless rogue elan, reminiscent of punk antihero Johnny Thunders and the ultimate junkie-gypsy guitarist, Keef himself.
    — Matt Wake | [email protected], al, 17 Mar. 2021
  • The custom cocktail dress was inspired by a style from Safiyaa’s fall-winter 2022 collection, which drew from the elan of the American socialite and fashion designer Gloria Vanderbilt.
    — Rosemary Feitelberg, Footwear News, 26 June 2026
  • Khrushchev sought to revive revolutionary elan and push the USSR to the final stage of history, the transition from socialism to communism, during which the state apparatus would finally wither away.
    — Benjamin Nathans september 24, Literary Hub, 24 Sep. 2025
  • With soulful elan, Rait, 72, and Staples, 83, delivered a stirring master class in musical excellence, emotional fervor and the art of simultaneously entertaining and uplifting an audience.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Dec. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'élan.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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