1 easily damaged or broken
SYNFRAGILE:
delicate china teacups * The eye is one of the most delicate organs of the body. * the delicate ecological balance of the rainforest * Babies have very delicate skin. * a cool wash cycle for delicate fabrics
2 (of a person) not strong and easily becoming ill:
a delicate child / constitution * His health had always been delicate.
3 small and having a beautiful shape or appearance:
his delicate hands * Women were treated like delicate flowers needing special treatment.
4 made or formed in a very careful and detailed way:
the delicate mechanisms of a clock
5 showing or needing skilful, careful or sensitive treatment:
I admired your delicate handling of the situation. * a delicate problem * The delicate surgical operation took five hours.
6 (of colours, flavours and smells) light and pleasant; not strong:
a delicate fragrance / flavour * a river scene painted in delicate watercolours
delicately adverb:
He stepped delicately over the broken glass. * delicately balanced flavours
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for delicate is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is delicate a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, delicate is tagged as adjective.
Does delicate appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — delicate appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
