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Delicate
Definitions
- 1 Easily damaged or requiring careful handling.
"Those clothes are made from delicate lace."
- 2 Characterized by a fine structure or thin lines.
"Her face was delicate."
- 3 Intended for use with fragile items.
"Set the washing machine to the delicate cycle."
- 4 Refined; gentle; scrupulous not to trespass or offend; considerate; said of manners, conduct, or feelings.
"delicate behaviour"
- 5 Of weak health; easily sick; unable to endure hardship.
"a delicate child"
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- 6 Unwell, especially because of having drunk too much alcohol. informal
"Please don't speak so loudly: I'm feeling a bit delicate this morning."
- 7 Addicted to pleasure; luxurious; voluptuous; alluring. obsolete
"This [Haarlem] is a very delicate towne, and hath one of the fairest Churches, of the Gotiq design, I had seene."
- 8 Pleasing to the senses; refined; adapted to please an elegant or cultivated taste.
"a delicate dish"
- 9 Slight and shapely; lovely; graceful.
"Caſ[ſio]. She is a moſt exquiſite Lady. […] Indeede ſhe is a moſt freſh and delicate creature."
- 10 Light, or softly tinted; said of a colour.
"a delicate shade of blue"
- 11 Of exacting tastes and habits; dainty; fastidious.
- 12 Highly discriminating or perceptive; refinedly critical; sensitive; exquisite.
"a delicate taste"
- 13 Affected by slight causes; showing slight changes.
"a delicate thermometer"
- 1 exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing; susceptible to injury wordnet
- 2 easily broken or damaged or destroyed wordnet
- 3 difficult to handle; requiring great tact wordnet
- 4 developed with extreme delicacy and subtlety wordnet
- 5 of an instrument or device; capable of registering minute differences or changes precisely wordnet
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- 6 marked by great skill especially in meticulous technique wordnet
- 7 easily hurt wordnet
- 1 A delicate item of clothing, especially underwear or lingerie.
"Don't put that in with your jeans: it's a delicate!"
- 2 A choice dainty; a delicacy. obsolete
"With Abstinence all Delicates he Sees, / And can regale himself with Toast and Cheese."
- 3 A delicate, luxurious, or effeminate person. obsolete
"A council of war was called, and the delicates met in the great cabin ; the platform was rigged up on the forecastle, the yard-rope rove, and the signal made for all boats to attend execution"
- 4 A moth of the species Mythimna vitellina.
Etymology
From Middle English delicat, from Latin dēlicātus (“giving pleasure, delightful, soft, luxurious, delicate, (in Medieval Latin also) fine, slender”), from dēlicia + -ātus (see -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), usually in plural dēliciae (“pleasure, delight, luxury”), from dēliciō (“I allure, entice”), from dē- (“away”) + laciō (“I lure, I deceive”), from Proto-Italic *lakjō (“to draw, pull”), of unknown ultimate origin. Compare delight, delicious and Spanish delgado (“thin, skinny”). The noun is from a substantivization of the adjective (see -ate).
From Middle English delicat, from Latin dēlicātus (“giving pleasure, delightful, soft, luxurious, delicate, (in Medieval Latin also) fine, slender”), from dēlicia + -ātus (see -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), usually in plural dēliciae (“pleasure, delight, luxury”), from dēliciō (“I allure, entice”), from dē- (“away”) + laciō (“I lure, I deceive”), from Proto-Italic *lakjō (“to draw, pull”), of unknown ultimate origin. Compare delight, delicious and Spanish delgado (“thin, skinny”). The noun is from a substantivization of the adjective (see -ate).
See also for "delicate"
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