delicate

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   easily broken or damaged or destroyed

   a kite too delicate to fly safely

2. 2
   adj

   marked by great skill especially in meticulous technique

   a surgeon's delicate touch

3. 3
   adj

   Easily damaged or requiring careful handling.

   Those clothes are made from delicate lace.

4. 4
   adj

   Characterized by a fine structure or thin lines.

   Her face was delicate.

5. 5
   adj

   Intended for use with fragile items.

   Set the washing machine to the delicate cycle.

6. 6
   adj

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

   delicate behaviour

7. 7
   adj

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

   a delicate child

8. 8
   adj

   Unwell, especially because of having drunk too much alcohol.

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

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 (“to allure, entice”), from dē- (“away”) + laciō (“to lure, to 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).