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Dainty   /dˈeɪnti/   Listen
adjective
Dainty  adj.  (compar. daintier; superl. daintiest)  
1.
Rare; valuable; costly. (Obs.) "Full many a deynté horse had he in stable." Note: Hence the proverb "dainty maketh dearth," i. e., rarity makes a thing dear or precious.
2.
Delicious to the palate; toothsome. "Dainty bits Make rich the ribs."
3.
Nice; delicate; elegant, in form, manner, or breeding; well-formed; neat; tender. "Those dainty limbs which nature lent For gentle usage and soft delicacy." "I would be the girdle. About her dainty, dainty waist."
4.
Requiring dainties. Hence: Overnice; hard to please; fastidious; squeamish; scrupulous; ceremonious. "Thew were a fine and dainty people." "And let us not be dainty of leave-taking, But shift away."
To make dainty, to assume or affect delicacy or fastidiousness. (Obs.) "Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty, She, I'll swear, hath corns."


noun
Dainty  n.  (pl. dainties)  
1.
Value; estimation; the gratification or pleasure taken in anything. (Obs.) "I ne told no deyntee of her love."
2.
That which is delicious or delicate; a delicacy. "That precious nectar may the taste renew Of Eden's dainties, by our parents lost."
3.
A term of fondness. (Poetic)
Synonyms: Dainty, Delicacy. These words are here compared as denoting articles of food. The term delicacy as applied to a nice article of any kind, and hence to articles of food which are particularly attractive. Dainty is stronger, and denotes some exquisite article of cookery. A hotel may be provided with all the delicacies of the season, and its table richly covered with dainties. "These delicacies I mean of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits, and flowers, Walks and the melody of birds." "(A table) furnished plenteously with bread, And dainties, remnants of the last regale."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Dainty" Quotes from Famous Books



... Alie showed great concern. One was of pretty pink glazed calico and of some other shiny stuff called 'chintz'—white, with tiny lines of different colours; she also bought some red cotton velvet and neat-looking white spotted muslin, and several yards of very narrow lace of a very small and dainty pattern, and other things, all of which interested Alie very much indeed, though after a while Biddy got tired of looking on, and went and stood at ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... metamorphosed into a decent, dear little room, about nine by eleven, and commanding the sun on the four sides of its quadrangle. In fact, it was a veritable sun-bath; and how dainty was the tip-drip of the icicles from the big elm-bough, upon the little roof! To this spot I used to travel down in all weathers; sometimes when it was so slippery on the hill behind the carriage-house (for the garden paths were impassable in winter) that I have had to return to primitive ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... she asked, spreading her dainty hands in the sunshine as though to warm them. She never feared the sun, for he was friendly to her nativity and never seemed to scorch her fair skin like that of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... small white hands all the time she was doing it. Neither of us had ever seen such before—the dainty skin, the pink ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... room. At the end of the dainty boudoir she saw the Duchess lounging luxuriously on an ottoman covered with brown velvet and placed in the centre of a sort of apse outlined by soft folds of white muslin over a yellow lining. Ornaments of ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac


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