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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








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"Delicacy" Quotes from Famous Books



... of these children I should judge to be about twelve years, and the youngest about seven. They were all girls, and looked nice and clean, and their healthful appearance and natural delicacy gave them a ready welcome. They appeared as if they had been brought up to fear God and love their humble home and mother. I had often stopped my train and let them get off at their home, having found them at the station some three miles from ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... be some want of delicacy in asking his client to account for the sums of money he had ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac

... and after dinner partook of a bottle of the best port which the inn afforded. After a few glasses, we had a great deal of conversation; I again brought the subject of marriage and love, divine love, upon the carpet, but Francis almost immediately begged me to drop it; and on my having the delicacy to comply, he reverted to dog-fighting, on which he talked well and learnedly; amongst other things, he said that it was a princely sport of great antiquity, and quoted from Quintus Curtius to prove that the princes of India must have been of the fancy, they having, according to that ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... made her appearance. She found her, alike in person, manners and conversation, a coarse and ordinary woman, not more unlike her son in talents and acquired accomplishments, than dissimilar to her daughter in softness and natural delicacy. ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... this work frequently for illustration, because it is the only one I know in which the engraver has worked with delicacy enough to give the real forms and touches of Turner. I can reason from these plates, (in questions of form only,) nearly as well as I could ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin


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