delicate

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Easily broken or damaged, and needing careful handling.

   These delicate glasses must be washed by hand.

2. 2
   adj

   Fine and graceful in structure or appearance.

   She has delicate features and a gentle smile.

3. 3
   adj

   Needing careful and sensitive handling.

   Talking about money can be a delicate matter.

4. 4
   adj

   Weak in health and easily becoming ill.

   The delicate child caught every cold that went around.

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).

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