The Collaborative International Dictionary
Neat \Neat\, a. [Compar. Neater; superl. Neatest.] [OE. nett, F. nett, fr. L. nitidus, fr. nitere to shine. Cf. Nitid, Net, a., Natty.]
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Free from that which soils, defiles, or disorders; clean; cleanly; tidy.
If you were to see her, you would wonder what poor body it was that was so surprisingly neat and clean.
--Law. Free from what is unbecoming, inappropriate, or tawdry; simple and becoming; pleasing with simplicity; tasteful; chaste; as, a neat style; a neat dress.
Free from admixture or adulteration; good of its kind; as, neat brandy; to drink one's vodka neat. Hence: (Chem.) Pure; undiluted; as, dissolved in neat acetone. ``Our old wine neat.''
--Chapman.Excellent in character, skill, or performance, etc.; nice; finished; adroit; as, a neat design; a neat thief.
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With all deductions or allowances made; net.
Note: [In this sense usually written net. See Net, a., 3.]
neat line (Civil Engin.), a line to which work is to be built or formed.
Neat work, work built or formed to neat lines.
Syn: Nice; pure; cleanly; tidy; trim; spruce.
Usage examples of "neat work".
The Torso had arranged her face, and dealt with the troublesome straps of her underthings by cutting them off with Mrs Bridgetower's nail scissors and doing some neat work with safety pins.
Beside him at the square table, the sweet-faced Trueheart was making neat work of a leafy salad topped with chunks of chicken.
Like any expert rider, she could find flaws in everything she did, and would have much preferred to have the vid show her over the seventeenth fencewhere she and Seniority had made neat work of a difficult combinationthan that last fence, where Seniority had jumped flat, and her own hand position showed why.