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DELICATE
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing; susceptible to injury
Example:
the delicate wing of a butterfly
Classified under:
Similar:
dainty; exquisite (delicately beautiful)
ethereal; gossamer (characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy)
fragile (vulnerably delicate)
light-handed (having a metaphorically delicate touch)
overdelicate (extremely delicate)
pastel (lacking in body or vigor)
tender ((of plants) not hardy; easily killed by adverse growing condition)
Also:
weak (wanting in physical strength)
breakable (capable of being broken or damaged)
frail (physically weak)
Attribute:
strength (the property of being physically or mentally strong)
Antonym:
rugged (sturdy and strong in constitution or construction; enduring)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Easily broken or damaged or destroyed
Example:
a frail craft
Synonyms:
delicate; fragile; frail
Classified under:
Similar:
breakable (capable of being broken or damaged)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Difficult to handle; requiring great tact
Example:
a touchy subject
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Developed with extreme delicacy and subtlety
Example:
the satire touches with finespun ridicule every kind of human pretense
Synonyms:
delicate; finespun
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
refined ((used of persons and their behavior) cultivated and genteel)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Of an instrument or device; capable of registering minute differences or changes precisely
Example:
almost undetectable with even the most delicate instruments
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
sensitive (responsive to physical stimuli)
Sense 6
Meaning:
Marked by great skill especially in meticulous technique
Example:
a surgeon's delicate touch
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
skilled (having or showing or requiring special skill)
Sense 7
Meaning:
Easily hurt
Example:
a baby's delicate skin
Synonyms:
delicate; soft
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
tender; untoughened (physically untoughened)
Context examples:
Delicate clouds made from cyanoacetylene and hydrogen cyanide, which form from reactions of methane byproducts with nitrogen molecules, also have been found there.
(NASA Finds Methane Ice Cloud in Titan's Stratosphere, NASA)
Amy, who was fond of delicate fare, took a heaping spoonful, choked, hid her face in her napkin, and left the table precipitately.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
The material could enable a range of new applications from gripper arms for delicate or heavy objects to antennas that change frequencies on the fly.
(Tiny magnetic particles enable new material to bend, twist and grab, National Science Foundation)
The finding provides evidence for one theory of aging, which suggests longevity depends on a delicate balance between proinflammatory proteins, thought to promote aging, and anti-inflammatory proteins, believed to prolong life.
(Defending against environmental stressors may shorten lifespan, National Institutes of Health)
It might have been Grecian, it might have been Roman, only it was a shade too massive for the one, a shade too delicate for the other.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Your ladyship places me in a very delicate position.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A very delicate blade devised for very delicate work.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
That trick of staining the fishes’ scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Components of a cell produced by various separation techniques which, though they disrupt the delicate anatomy of a cell, preserve the structure and physiology of its functioning constituents for biochemical and ultrastructural analysis.
(Cell Fraction, NCI Thesaurus)
A new study explores how a process called microbialization destroys links in this delicate food chain.
(Too much algae and too many microbes threaten coral reefs, NSF)
