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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Pleasing to the senses, especially in a subtle way: a delicate flavor; a delicate violin passage.
  2. adj. Exquisitely fine or dainty: delicate china.
  3. adj. Frail in constitution or health.
  4. adj. Easily broken or damaged: a kite too delicate to fly.
  5. adj. Marked by sensitivity of discrimination: a critic's delicate perception.
  6. adj. Considerate of the feelings of others.
  7. adj. Concerned with propriety.
  8. adj. Squeamish or fastidious.
  9. adj. Requiring tactful treatment: a delicate situation.
  10. adj. Fine or soft in touch or skill: a surgeon's delicate touch.
  11. adj. Measuring, indicating, or responding to very small changes; precise: a delicate set of scales.
  12. adj. Very subtle in difference or distinction.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Pleasing to any of the senses, especially to the sense of taste; dainty; delicious: opposed to coarse or rough.
  2. Agreeable; delightful; charming.
  3. Fine in characteristic details; minutely perfect in kind; exquisite in form, proportions, finish, texture, manner, or the like; nice; dainty; charming: as, a delicate being; a delicate skin or fabric; delicate tints.
  4. Of a fine or refined constitution; refined.
  5. Nice in construction or operation; exquisitely adjusted or adapted; minutely accurate or suitable: as, a delicate piece of mechanism; a delicate balance or spring.
  6. Requiring nicety in action; to be approached or performed with caution; precarious; ticklish: as, a delicate surgical operation; a delicate topic of conversation.
  7. Nice in perception or action; exquisitely acute or dexterous; finely sensitive or exact; deft: as, a delicate touch; a delicate performer or performance.
  8. Nice in forms; regulated by minute observance of propriety, or by attention to the opinions and feelings of others; refined: as, delicate behavior or manners; a delicate address.
  9. Susceptible to disease or injury; of a tender constitution; feeble; not able to endure hardship: as, a delicate frame or constitution; delicate health.
  10. Nice in perception of what is agreeable to the senses or the intellect; peculiarly sensitive to beauty, harmony, or their opposites; dainty; fastidious: as, a delicate taste; a delicate eye for color.
  11. Full of pleasure; luxurious; sumptuous; delightful.
  12. Synonyms Pleasant, delicious, palatable, savory. Fastidious, discriminating. Sensitive.
  13. n. Something savory, luscious, or delicious; a delicacy; a dainty.
  14. n. A fastidious person.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Easily damaged or requiring careful handling.
  2. adj. Characterized by a fine structure or thin lines.
  3. adj. Intended for use with fragile items.
  4. adj. Of weak health, easily sick.
  5. adj. Unwell, especially because of having drunk too much alcohol.
  6. n. A delicate item of clothing
  7. n. Specifically underwear or lingerie.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Addicted to pleasure; luxurious; voluptuous; alluring.
  2. adj. Pleasing to the senses; refinedly agreeable; hence, adapted to please a nice or cultivated taste; nice; fine; elegant.
  3. adj. Slight and shapely; lovely; graceful.”
  4. adj. Fine or slender; minute; not coarse; -- said of a thread, or the like.
  5. adj. Slight or smooth; light and yielding; -- said of texture.
  6. adj. Soft and fair; -- said of the skin or a surface
  7. adj. Light, or softly tinted; -- said of a color.
  8. adj. Refined; gentle; scrupulous not to trespass or offend; considerate; -- said of manners, conduct, or feelings
  9. adj. Tender; not able to endure hardship; feeble; frail; effeminate; -- said of constitution, health, etc.
  10. adj. Requiring careful handling; not to be rudely or hastily dealt with; nice; critical.
  11. adj. Of exacting tastes and habits; dainty; fastidious.
  12. adj. Nicely discriminating or perceptive; refinedly critical; sensitive; exquisite.
  13. adj. Affected by slight causes; showing slight changes.
  14. n. A choice dainty; a delicacy.
  15. n. A delicate, luxurious, or effeminate person.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. difficult to handle; requiring great tact
  2. adj. exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing; susceptible to injury
  3. adj. of an instrument or device; capable of registering minute differences or changes precisely
  4. adj. developed with extreme delicacy and subtlety
  5. adj. marked by great skill especially in meticulous technique
  6. adj. easily hurt
  7. adj. easily broken or damaged or destroyed

Etymologies

  1. Middle English delicat and French délicat, both from Latin dēlicātus, pleasing; akin to dēlicia, pleasure; see delicious.

Examples

  • “All fine colouring, like fine drawing, is _delicate_; and so delicate that if, at last, you”

    The Crown of Wild Olive also Munera Pulveris; Pre-Raphaelitism; Aratra Pentelici; The Ethics of the Dust; Fiction, Fair and Foul; The Elements of Drawing

  • “It's interesting to note Fisher's use of the term "delicate balance" in reference to Tennessee Williams.”

    The Huffington Post: George Heymont: This Is Your Life

  • “The General prides himself on what he calls delicate irony.”

    The Citizen-Soldier or, Memoirs of a Volunteer

  • “French have a high value for them; and I confess, they are often what they call delicate, when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more simplicity, and followed nature more closely, than to use them.”

    English literary criticism

  • “That is what I call a delicate attention, dear master, and I thank you very much for it.”

    The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters

  • “It need not be, it ought not, I think, to be, a book specifically on what one calls delicate questions, that would be throwing them up in just the way one does not want them thrown up; it should be a sort of rationalized and not too technical handbook of physiological instruction in the College Library -- or at home.”

    Mankind in the Making

  • “It need not be, it ought not, I think, to be, a book specifically on what one calls delicate questions, that would be throwing them up in just the way one does not want them thrown up; it should be a sort of rationalized and not too technical handbook of physiological instruction in the College”

    Mankind in the Making

  • “The Air France statement says further work is necessary on what it calls the "delicate issue of human-machine interface.”

    News - chicagotribune.com

  • “The French have a high value for them; and I confess, they are often what they call delicate, when they are introduced with judgment; but Chaucer writ with more simplicity, and followed nature more closely, than to use them.”

    Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations

  • “Sponsors spent most of the debate in the Senate tiptoeing past land mines they said would blow up the bill, which they described as a delicate compromise between medical-pot businesses, law enforcement groups and local governments - all of which have parts of the bill they dislike.”

    Denver Post: News: Breaking: Local

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‘delicate’ has been looked up 2724 times, loved by 9 people, added to 69 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 11.