Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Delicacy   /dˈɛləkəsi/  /dˈɛlɪkəsi/   Listen
noun
Delicacy  n.  (pl. delicacies)  
1.
The state or condition of being delicate; agreeableness to the senses; delightfulness; as, delicacy of flavor, of odor, and the like. "What choice to choose for delicacy best."
2.
Nicety or fineness of form, texture, or constitution; softness; elegance; smoothness; tenderness; and hence, frailty or weakness; as, the delicacy of a fiber or a thread; delicacy of a hand or of the human form; delicacy of the skin; delicacy of frame.
3.
Nice propriety of manners or conduct; susceptibility or tenderness of feeling; refinement; fastidiousness; and hence, in an exaggerated sense, effeminacy; as, great delicacy of behavior; delicacy in doing a kindness; delicacy of character that unfits for earnest action. "You know your mother's delicacy in this point."
4.
Addiction to pleasure; luxury; daintiness; indulgence; luxurious or voluptuous treatment. "And to those dainty limbs which Nature lent For gentle usage and soft delicacy?"
5.
Nice and refined perception and discrimination; critical niceness; fastidious accuracy. "That Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great public schools of England."
6.
The state of being affected by slight causes; sensitiveness; as, the delicacy of a chemist's balance.
7.
That which is alluring, delicate, or refined; a luxury or pleasure; something pleasant to the senses, especially to the sense of taste; a dainty; as, delicacies of the table. "The merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies."
8.
Pleasure; gratification; delight. (Obs.) "He Rome brent for his delicacie."
Synonyms: See Dainty.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Delicacy" Quotes from Famous Books



... qualities for which we may legitimately prize them, though we may not spend money for them until actual nutritive requirements are met. Dr. Simon Patten, in his New Basis for Civilisation, ably expresses the value of appetizers: "Tomatoes, the hothouse delicacy of the Civil War time, are doing now what many a bloody revolution failed to accomplish; they have relieved the monotony of the salt pork and boiled potatoes upon the poor man's table. The clear acid flavor of the canned vegetable ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose

... and a gentleman, Mr. Effingham had looked forward to this passage with a good deal of concern, on account of his daughter, while he shrank with the sensitiveness of his habits from the necessity of exposing one of her delicacy and plastic simplicity to the intercourse of a ship. Accompanied by Mademoiselle Viefville, watched over by Nanny, and guarded by himself and his kinsman, he had lost some of his apprehensions on the subject during the three ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... I could not be so crude as to speak outright, but I might finesse, as you whist-players say. Accomplish the same end, only with greater delicacy. After all, a ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... a right to say "Balzac ought to have put more delicacy, more subtlety into his style," or to say, "Balzac ought to have eliminated those long descriptions." Balzac is Balzac; and that ends it. If you prefer the manner of Henry James, by all means read him ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... thought of Ida May always brought Peter to Cissie; it always stirred up in him a desire to make this young girl's path gentle and smooth. There was a fineness, a delicacy about Cissie, that, it seemed to Peter, Ida May had never possessed. Then, too, Cissie was moved by a passion for self-betterment. She deserved a cleaner field than the Niggertown of ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling


More quotes...



Copyright © 2026 Free-Translator.com