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Subtle   /sˈətəl/   Listen
adjective
Subtile  adj.  
1.
Thin; not dense or gross; rare; as, subtile air; subtile vapor; a subtile medium.
2.
Delicately constituted or constructed; nice; fine; delicate; tenuous; finely woven. "A sotil (subtile) twine's thread." "More subtile web Arachne can not spin." "I do distinguish plain Each subtile line of her immortal face."
3.
Acute; piercing; searching. "The slow disease and subtile pain."
4.
Characterized by nicety of discrimination; discerning; delicate; refined; subtle. (In this sense now commonly written subtle) "The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtile, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humor and so little wit in their literature. The genius of the Italians, on the contrary, is acute, profound, and sensual, but not subtile; hence what they think to be humorous, is merely witty." "The subtile influence of an intellect like Emerson's."
5.
Sly; artful; cunning; crafty; subtle; as, a subtile person; a subtile adversary; a subtile scheme. (In this sense now commonly written subtle)
Synonyms: Subtile, Acute. In acute the image is that of a needle's point; in subtile that of a thread spun out to fineness. The acute intellect pierces to its aim; the subtile (or subtle) intellect winds its way through obstacles.


Subtle  adj.  (compar. subtler; superl. subtlest)  
1.
Sly in design; artful; cunning; insinuating; subtile; applied to persons; as, a subtle foe. "A subtle traitor."
2.
Cunningly devised; crafty; treacherous; as, a subtle stratagem.
3.
Characterized by refinement and niceness in drawing distinctions; nicely discriminating; said of persons; as, a subtle logician; refined; tenuous; sinuous; insinuating; hence, penetrative or pervasive; said of the mind; its faculties, or its operations; as, a subtle intellect; a subtle imagination; a subtle process of thought; also, difficult of apprehension; elusive. "Things remote from use, obscure and subtle."
4.
Smooth and deceptive. (Obs.) "Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground (bowling ground)."
Synonyms: Artful; crafty; cunning; shrewd; sly; wily. Subtle is the most comprehensive of these epithets and implies the finest intellectual quality. See Shrewd, and Cunning.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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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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