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Subtle   /sˈətəl/   Listen
Subtle

adjective
(compar. subtler; superl. subtlest)
1.
Difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze.  Synonym: elusive.  "A subtle difference" , "That elusive thing the soul"
2.
Able to make fine distinctions.
3.
Working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way.  Synonyms: insidious, pernicious.  "A subtle poison"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Subtle" Quotes from Famous Books



... but two equals,—namely, George, the youngest of the Nevile brothers, Archbishop of York; and a boy, whose intellect was not yet fully developed, but in whom was already apparent to the observant the dawn of a restless, fearless, calculating, and subtle genius. That boy, whom the philosophers of Utrecht had taught to reason, whom the lessons of Warwick had trained to arms, was Richard, Duke of Gloucester, famous even now for his skill in the tilt-yard and his ingenuity in the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to Trent, turning at that moment to relight his cigar, that a look of subtle intelligence was flashed from one to the other of the brothers. He paused with the match in his fingers, puzzled, suspicious, anxious. So there was some scheme hatched already between these precious pair! It was time indeed ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... out from childhood into manhood. This atmosphere, where everything took a religious value, came with a subtle fascination to him. There was something in the air. His own mother was logical. Here there was something different, something he loved, something ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... puzzled her. She seemed to see reflections of beauty, if not beauty itself, in the little colorless face, in the figure, with its too-large joints and utter absence of curves. She sometimes even wondered privately if some subtle resemblance to the handsome Wheelers might not be in the child and yet appear. But she was mistaken. What she saw was pure mimicry of a ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... "with such an air as represented that he was an actor and with such an inferior manner as only acting an actor, as made the others on the stage appear real great persons and not representatives. This was a nicety in acting that none but the most subtle player could so much as conceive." It is conceivable, however, that some of this subtlety existed rather in the fancy of the critic than in the method of the player. This story of Mr. Peer is hardly to be equalled; yet Davies relates of Boheme, the actor, that when, upon his first appearance ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook


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