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Delicate   /dˈɛləkət/   Listen
adjective
Delicate  adj.  
1.
Addicted to pleasure; luxurious; voluptuous; alluring. (R.) "Dives, for his delicate life, to the devil went." "Haarlem is a very delicate town."
2.
Pleasing to the senses; refinedly agreeable; hence, adapted to please a nice or cultivated taste; nice; fine; elegant; as, a delicate dish; delicate flavor.
3.
Slight and shapely; lovely; graceful; as, "a delicate creature."
4.
Fine or slender; minute; not coarse; said of a thread, or the like; as, delicate cotton.
5.
Slight or smooth; light and yielding; said of texture; as, delicate lace or silk.
6.
Soft and fair; said of the skin or a surface; as, a delicate cheek; a delicate complexion.
7.
Light, or softly tinted; said of a color; as, a delicate blue.
8.
Refined; gentle; scrupulous not to trespass or offend; considerate; said of manners, conduct, or feelings; as, delicate behavior; delicate attentions; delicate thoughtfulness.
9.
Tender; not able to endure hardship; feeble; frail; effeminate; said of constitution, health, etc.; as, a delicate child; delicate health. "A delicate and tender prince."
10.
Requiring careful handling; not to be rudely or hastily dealt with; nice; critical; as, a delicate subject or question. "There are some things too delicate and too sacred to be handled rudely without injury to truth."
11.
Of exacting tastes and habits; dainty; fastidious.
12.
Nicely discriminating or perceptive; refinedly critical; sensitive; exquisite; as, a delicate taste; a delicate ear for music.
13.
Affected by slight causes; showing slight changes; as, a delicate thermometer.



noun
Delicate  n.  
1.
A choice dainty; a delicacy. (R.) "With abstinence all delicates he sees."
2.
A delicate, luxurious, or effeminate person. "All the vessels, then, which our delicates have, those I mean that would seem to be more fine in their houses than their neighbors, are only of the Corinth metal."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Delicate" Quotes from Famous Books



... look for the delicate apprehension and tact, which can only be formed in a highly polished state of society, nor for the indignation of insulted morality expressed by the ancients: it is altogether a caricature, not of finished individual portraits, but of a single type;—a clownish sensual German ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... us by the sword, and by the sword we shall answer! You are too delicate for us, Alexis. There should be none here but men whose hands are rough with ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde

... merely stimulated his ambition. He was really a merry creature, and when he had got off a number of very good things which were received in perfect silence, and looked over his audience with a woe-begone eye, and said, with an effect of delicate apology, 'I hope I'm not disturbing you any,' I broke down and laughed, and that delivered me into his hand. He immediately said to me that now he would tell me about a friend of his, who had a pretty large family, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... briefly all the cases known to me of male quadrupeds differing in colour from the females. With Marsupials, as I am informed by Mr. Gould, the sexes rarely differ in this respect; but the great red kangaroo offers a striking exception, "delicate blue being the prevailing tint in those parts of the female which in the male are red." (19. Osphranter rufus, Gould, 'Mammals of Australia,' 1863, vol. ii. On the Didelphis, Desmarest, 'Mammalogie,' p. 256.) In the Didelphis ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... pipe rather fiercely, in some contempt at this trivial discussion. He had no ear for music himself, and never went to church, as being of the medical profession, and likely to be in requisition for delicate cows. But the butcher, having music in his soul, had listened with a divided desire for Tookey's defeat and for the preservation of ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot


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