Adjective

(en adjective)

Easily damaged or requiring careful handling.

Those clothes are made from delicate lace.

The negotiations were very delicate .

* F. W. Robertson

There are some things too delicate and too sacred to be handled rudely without injury to truth.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=April 23 , author=Angelique Chrisafis , title=François Hollande on top but far right scores record result in French election , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=The final vote between Hollande and Sarkozy now depends on a delicate balance of how France's total of rightwing and leftwing voters line up.}}

Characterized by a fine structure or thin lines.

Her face was delicate .

The spider wove a delicate web.

There was a delicate pattern of frost on the window.

Intended for use with fragile items.

Set the washing machine to the delicate cycle.

Refined; gentle; scrupulous not to trespass or offend; considerate; said of manners, conduct, or feelings.

delicate''' behaviour; '''delicate''' attentions; '''delicate thoughtfulness

Of weak health; easily sick; unable to endure hardship.

a delicate''' child; '''delicate health

* Shakespeare

a delicate and tender prince

(informal) Unwell, especially because of having drunk too much alcohol.

Please don't speak so loudly: I'm feeling a bit delicate this morning.

(obsolete) Addicted to pleasure; luxurious; voluptuous; alluring.

* 1360–1387 , (William Langland), (Piers Plowman) (C-text), passus IX, line 285:

Þenk þat diues for hus delicat lyf to þe deuel wente.

* circa'' 1660 , (John Evelyn) (author), , volume I of II (1901), entry for the 19th of August in 1641, page 29:

Haerlem is a very delicate town and hath one of the fairest churches of the Gothic design I had ever seen.

Pleasing to the senses; refined; adapted to please an elegant or cultivated taste.

a delicate''' dish; '''delicate flavour

Slight and shapely; lovely; graceful.

* circa'' 1603 , (William Shakespeare), ''(Othello) , act II, scene iii, lines 18 and 20–21:

:   She’s a most exquisite lady.…Indeed, she’s a most fresh and delicate creature.

Light, or softly tinted; said of a colour.

a delicate shade of blue

Of exacting tastes and habits; dainty; fastidious.

Highly discriminating or perceptive; refinedly critical; sensitive; exquisite.

a delicate''' taste; a '''delicate ear for music

Affected by slight causes; showing slight changes.

a delicate thermometer

Adjective

(er)

(label) Pitiable; deserving of compassion; helpless.

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , I.vi:

A silly man, in simple weedes forworne, / And soild with dust of the long dried way; / His sandales were with toilesome trauell torne, / And face all tand with scorching sunny ray

* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)

After long storms with which my silly bark was tossed sore.

* (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)

The silly buckets on the deck.

(label) Simple, unsophisticated, ordinary; rustic, ignorant.

* 1633 , (John Donne), "Sapho to Philænis":

For, if we justly call each silly man'' / A ''little island , What shall we call thee than?

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

A fourth man, in a silly habit.

* (John Milton) (1608-1674)

All that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

Foolish, showing a lack of good sense and wisdom; frivolous, trifling.

Irresponsible, showing irresponsible behaviors.

Semiconscious, witless.

(label) Of a fielding position, very close to the batsman; closer than short.

Simple, not intelligent, unrefined.

* {{quote-book, year=1935, author= George Goodchild

, title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=1 , passage=“Anthea hasn't a notion in her head but to vamp a lot of silly mugwumps. She's set her heart on that tennis bloke

(label) Happy; fortunate; blessed.

(Chaucer)

(label) Harmless; innocent; inoffensive.

* (Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)

The silly virgin strove him to withstand.

* Robynson (More's Utopia)

A silly , innocent hare murdered of a dog.