Adjacent Words

subtlety definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude; "without understanding the finer nuances you can't enjoy the humor"; "don't argue about shades of meaning" [syn: nuance, nicety, shade, subtlety, refinement]
2: the quality of being difficult to detect or analyze; "you had to admire the subtlety of the distinctions he drew" [syn: subtlety, niceness]

Merriam Webster's

noun (plural -ties) Etymology: Middle English sotilte, subtilte, from Anglo-French sotilté, from Latin subtilitat-, subtilitas, from subtilis Date: 14th century 1. the quality or state of being subtle 2. something subtle

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (pl. -ies) 1 something subtle. 2 a fine distinction; an instance of hairsplitting. Etymology: ME f. OF s(o)utilté f. L subtilitas -tatis (as SUBTLE)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Subtlety Sub"tle*ty, n.; pl. Subtleties. [OE. sotelte, sutilte, OF. sotillete, L. subtilitas. See Subtle, and cf. Subtility.] 1. The quality or state of being subtle, or sly; cunning; craftiness; artfulness. The fox which lives by subtlety. --Shak. 2. Nice discernment with delicacy of mental action; nicety of discrimination. 3. Something that is sly, crafty, or delusive. Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. --Shak.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(subtleties) 1. Subtleties are very small details or differences which are not obvious. His fascination with the subtleties of human behaviour makes him a good storyteller... When a book goes into translation, all those linguistic subtleties get lost. N-COUNT: usu pl, usu with supp, oft N of n 2. Subtlety is the quality of being not immediately obvious or noticeable, and therefore difficult to describe. Many of the resulting wines lack the subtlety of the original model. 3. Subtlety is the ability to notice and recognize things which are not obvious, especially small differences between things. She analyses herself with great subtlety. N-UNCOUNT 4. Subtlety is the ability to use indirect methods to achieve something, rather than doing something that is obvious. They had obviously been hoping to approach the topic with more subtlety.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Craft, craftiness, cunning, artifice, astuteness, artfulness, subtleness, guile. 2. Acuteness, acumen, keenness, shrewdness, discernment, intelligence, cleverness, sagacity.

Moby Thesaurus

Italian hand, absoluteness, accuracy, acquired taste, acuteness, airiness, airy nothing, animal cunning, apparent soundness, appreciation, appreciation of differences, appreciation of excellence, appreciativeness, art, artfulness, artifice, artistic judgment, astuteness, attention to detail, attention to fact, bodilessness, cageyness, callidity, canniness, care for truth, casuistry, choiceness, circularity, circumstantiality, civilized taste, civilizedness, cleverness, complexity, complexness, complication, connoisseurship, conscientiousness, convolution, correctness, crabbedness, craft, craftiness, critical niceness, criticality, criticalness, cultivated taste, cultivation, culture, cunning, cunningness, daintiness, deceptiveness, delicacy, delicate distinction, detail, deviousness, differentia, differential, discriminating taste, discriminatingness, discrimination, discriminativeness, disingenuousness, distinction, distortion, elegance, entanglement, equivocalness, equivocation, ethereality, evasive reasoning, exactingness, exactitude, exactness, excellence, exquisiteness, faithfulness, fallaciousness, fallacy, fastidiousness, faultlessness, feel, feeling, fidelity, fine Italian hand, fine palate, fine point, fineness, finesse, finicality, finicalness, finickiness, finickingness, flawlessness, flimsiness, foxiness, fussiness, gamesmanship, good taste, grace, gracefulness, gracility, graciosity, graciousness, guile, guilefulness, hairline, immateriality, impalpability, imponderability, incorporeality, ingeniousness, insidiousness, insincerity, insolidity, insubstantiality, intangibility, intricacy, intricateness, inventiveness, involution, involvement, jesuitism, jesuitry, judiciousness, literalism, literality, literalness, low cunning, making distinctions, margin, mathematical precision, meticulousness, minuteness, misapplication, mistiness, mystification, narrow margin, nice distinction, niceness, niceness of distinction, nicety, nuance, obfuscation, obscurantism, one-upmanship, oversubtlety, palate, particle of difference, particularity, particularness, pawkiness, perfection, perplexity, perversion, philosophism, plausibility, plausibleness, point of difference, polish, preciseness, precisianism, precision, punctiliousness, punctuality, quality, ramification, rareness, rarity, rationalization, readiness, refined discrimination, refined palate, refinement, resourcefulness, right, rightness, rigidity, rigidness, rigor, rigorousness, satanic cunning, scrupulosity, scrupulousness, selectiveness, sense, sensibility, sensitivity, severity, shade of difference, sharpness, shiftiness, shrewdness, slickness, slightness, slipperiness, slyness, sneakiness, sophism, sophistical reasoning, sophistication, sophistry, special pleading, speciosity, specious reasoning, speciousness, stealth, stealthiness, strictness, subtility, subtilty, subtle distinction, subtleness, suppleness, tact, tactfulness, tanglement, taste, tastefulness, technicality, tenuity, tenuousness, textualism, the letter, thinness, treachery, trickiness, unconcreteness, unreality, unsolidity, unsubstantiality, unsubstantialness, vagueness, vicious circle, vicious reasoning, wariness, wide margin, wiles, wiliness, wit