Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Developed to extreme fineness or subtlety; elaborate.
  • adjective Developed to excessive fineness; overwrought.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • They can be obscure, built up as they are by fine-spun suggestion and the same embroidered, often archaic expressions he used in poetry, indifferent to modern fashion.

    50 entries from June 2007 2007

  • They can be obscure, built up as they are by fine-spun suggestion and the same embroidered, often archaic expressions he used in poetry, indifferent to modern fashion.

    Look thy last on all things lovely 2007

  • When he'd met her in the fall of his junior year at Gansevoort High she was that good and also that bad girl from the older, more crowded part of town and she had hair the color of sunset, a fine-spun crown of copper and gold that she let fall about her shoulders and that reminded Ray of autumn finery and the twittering passage of a bright bird in the forest.

    Gansevoort Ridge 2009

  • And the green grass that gave way under his feet was made of fine-spun sugar.

    Archive 2009-09-01 David McDuff 2009

  • They can be obscure, built up as they are by fine-spun suggestion and the same embroidered, often archaic expressions he used in poetry, indifferent to modern fashion.

    Look thy last on all things lovely 2007

  • The floor of the wood is carpeted with the drifting down of willow seeds and their fine-spun woolen nests.

    A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009

  • He ceased his sad lament, and would have raised his aged frame, but found himself held fast by the fine-spun robe as ivy that clings to the branches of the bay, and then ensued a fearful struggle.

    Medea 2008

  • He ceased his sad lament, and would have raised his aged frame, but found himself held fast by the fine-spun robe as ivy that clings to the branches of the bay, and then ensued a fearful struggle.

    Medea 2008

  • Bright rays beam dazzlingly from him, and his bright locks streaming from the temples of his head gracefully enclose his far-seen face: a rich, fine-spun garment glows upon his body and flutters in the wind: and stallions carry him.

    Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, and Homerica 2007

  • Begone, thou fine-spun veil! float from my head away!

    Andromache 2007

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