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Dainty

adjective

(compar. daintier; superl. daintiest)

Affectedly dainty or refined. Synonyms: mincing, niminy-piminy, prim, twee.

Delicately beautiful. Synonym: exquisite. "An exquisite cameo"

Especially pleasing to the taste.

Excessively fastidious and easily disgusted. Synonyms: nice, overnice, prissy, squeamish. "So squeamish he would only touch the toilet handle with his elbow"

noun

(pl. dainties)

Something considered choice to eat. Synonyms: delicacy, goody, kickshaw, treat.

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"Dainty" Quotes from Famous Books

... think Aunt Nan just the loveliest and sweetest body in the world. They send her flowers and bric-a-brac; they beg her to come here and there to receptions and charity bazaars, and reunions of all sorts. She is so small and dainty, and they are all growing ...

— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... himself, she smiled upon her other guest with winning graciousness and forthwith began the dainty task of initiating him into the ...

— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... is always a little shocking and grievous to a wife when she recognizes a rival in butchers'-meat and the vegetables of the season. With her slender relishes for pastry and confectionery and her dainty habits of lunching, she cannot reconcile with the idea (of) her husband's capacity for breakfasting, dining, supping, and hot meals at all hours of the day and night—as they write it on the sign-boards of barbaric eating-houses. But isabel would have only herself to blame ...

— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... where he is. I heard he had gone to Montreal." And when she had said it she became as white as the dainty lawn blouse she wore. ...

— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... rich stream of brightness, fire and candle, meat, drink, and company, and gleaming like a jovial eye upon the bleak waste out of doors! Within, what carpet like its crunching sand, what music merry as its crackling logs, what perfume like its kitchen's dainty breath, what weather genial as its hearty warmth! Blessings on the old house, how sturdily it stood! How did the vexed wind chafe and roar about its stalwart roof; how did it pant and strive with its wide chimneys, which still poured forth from their hospitable throats, great clouds ...

— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

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