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delicacy
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  • They serve bird nest soup and other Chinese delicacies.
    delicacies = rare and expensive types of food
  • All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.   (source)
    delicacies = things that are rare or expensive
  •   She said "Cokes and peanuts" the way you might say "snot and boogers."
      August laughed. "They don't know a delicacy when they see one, do they, Lily?"   (source)
    delicacy = delicious food that is rarely available
  • He brought delicacies of the gods — wine stolen from Zeus' own stores, the sweetest honey of Mount Hybla, where the bees drink only thyme and linden blossoms.   (source)
    delicacies = prized foods
  • Her Missionary Society refreshments added to her reputation as a hostess (she did not permit Calpurnia to make the delicacies required to sustain the Society through long reports on Rice Christians); she joined and became Secretary of the Maycomb Amanuensis Club.   (source)
  • Ekwefi even gave her such delicacies as eggs, which children were rarely allowed to eat because such food tempted them to steal.   (source)
  • Redd's soldiers helped themselves to wondercrumpets, fried dormice, and whatever other delicacies they could find, and none too delicately shoved them into their mouths.   (source)
  • Our latest delicacy is piccalilli.   (source)
    delicacy = rare and delicious food
  • He bought his newspaper in one shop, read it with morning coffee in a tiny café that also offered old watercolour paintings for sale; took a turn in the park; shopped for delicacies in the various food shops.   (source)
    delicacies = rare and expensive types of foods
  • Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries.   (source)
    delicacies = things of high quality -- such as expensive foods
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  • Sometimes he returned bearing delicacies unknown before.†   (source)
  • On the left was a Scylla of lower-priced dishes that could suggest a penny-pinching lack of flair; and on the right was a Charybdis of delicacies that could empty one's pockets while painting one pretentious.†   (source)
  • It was full of good things to eat, with rare delicacies from other provinces and delicious items like dried duck gizzards strung up in its window.†   (source)
  • Even the servants had stopped to watch her, holding trays of delicacies aloft.†   (source)
  • My trips up and down the stairs continued until my knees threatened to fold up and quit, bringing dishes down, carrying more delicacies and hot drinks up.†   (source)
  • They tempted him with delicacies but he waved them away and drank his tea.†   (source)
  • There were many shortages during wartime, so any delicacies we could find were always an excuse for little parties.†   (source)
  • Meggie saw a round nose emerge from the pack, snuffling in the hope of more delicacies.†   (source)
  • Of course not all the money ended up in the hands of the poor surrogates themselves: the Council officials had to live, and they lived well, with vodka and a few little delicacies.†   (source)
  • They brought with them a basket of delicacies — I am thoroughly spoiled by dear Mrs. Cartwright — for which I expressed much gratitude, although I could barely taste anything, as I have no appetite at present.†   (source)
  • "You don't really have to eat, do you?" he asked, as he began to ladle something into his bowl that resembled a thin seafood soup, with squid and fish and other more ambiguous delicacies.†   (source)
  • The old satyr clapped his hands, and a bunch of nymphs melted out of the trees with platters of vegetables, fruits, tin cans, and other goat delicacies.†   (source)
  • Florentino Ariza continued to bring delicacies from the European ships, and Fermina Daza found a way to contribute a new surprise each time.†   (source)
  • "She loves delicacies," he said.†   (source)
  • Warrant Officer Swart baked bread, made home-brewed ginger beer and assorted other delicacies.†   (source)
  • Before long the scent of food permeated the glade and elves appeared carrying platters piled with delicacies.†   (source)
  • They would sit in a prime spot in the back of the room and kibitz and enjoy contraband delicacies, courtesy of Pop.†   (source)
  • But the foreign delicacies Changazi savored most had names like Hildegund and Isabella.†   (source)
  • …birds stuffed with truffles, a torrent of exotic liquors, a flood of champagne, and an extravagance of desserts: ladyfingers, millefeuilles, eclairs, sugar cookies, huge glass goblets of glazed fruits, Argentine strawberries, Brazilian coconuts, Chilean papayas, Cuban pineapple, and other delicacies impossible to remember, all arrayed on a long table that ran the length of the garden, terminating in a colossal threestory wedding cake designed by an Italian artist born in Naples.†   (source)
  • They'd celebrated with ale and meat, both delicacies over the standard rations of fermented water and starch.†   (source)
  • I had neither itch nor etchings, but there was a vase of Chinese lilies in the living room, and another of American Beauty roses on the table near the bed; and I had put in a supply of wine, whiskey and liqueur, extra ice cubes, and assortments of fruit, cheese, nuts, candy and other delicacies from the Vendome.†   (source)
  • The cat apparently had no delicacies when it came to food, and attacked the meal with gusto.†   (source)
  • At Christmas I filled shopping carts to the brim with hams and cakes and other delicacies, things I knew she wouldn't buy for herself, couldn't buy for herself on the income she had from the ironing and the few dollars she made canning jelly, hot peppers and watermelon pickles.†   (source)
  • I've brought a few delicacies from the sea for your collegial gathering before the evening meal which I have personally attended to at the side of the chef who has been known to be prone to errors without expert guidance which I was all too happy to provide.†   (source)
  • "The delicacies of the Comte de Vergennes about communicating my powers [to Britain] are not perfectly consonant to my manner of thinking," Adams wrote to Congress.†   (source)
  • I tried to imagine how the humans had gotten their hands on these delicacies.†   (source)
  • As the magus talked, servants moved in and out carrying trays with tempting delicacies, most of which the king ate.†   (source)
  • He had thrown dollars about by the hundredsat that party he had given today-for unfinished drinks, for uneaten delicacies, for unprovoked tips and unexpected whims, for a long distance phone call to Argentina because one of the guests had wanted to check the exact version of a smutty story he had started telling, for the spur of any moment, for the clammy stupor of knowing that it was easier to pay than to think.†   (source)
  • The silence of the tea estates and no doubt my mother's sense of theatre and romance (fed by vociferous readings of J. M. Barrie and Michael Arlen) combined the edited delicacies of fiction with the last era of a colonial Ceylon.†   (source)
  • And yet the pleasure was sumptuous, a banquet of exotic delicacies.†   (source)
  • Though they tell tales that they first adore them, feeding them delicacies by the bucket and wine by the barrel.†   (source)
  • Inside Meereen the slavers would soon be reclining in their fringed tokars to feast on lamb and olives, unborn puppies, honeyed dormice and other such delicacies, whilst outside her children went hungry.†   (source)
  • Lou had ridden Sue down, and she and Oz took turns giving the camp children rides free of charge, but the patrons could "donate" peppermint sticks and other delicacies if they saw fit, and many did.†   (source)
  • I couldn't believe Homer was cooking such delicacies in his dugout house with dirt floors, no running water, no gas, no electricity, and no nothing.†   (source)
  • Could people who hatch their own chicks and eat the embryos and the heads for delicacies and boil the feet in vinegar for party food, leaving only the gravel, eating even the gizzard lining-could such people engender a prodigal aunt?†   (source)
  • The foundation for the new house was prepared according to the blueprints which the Bishop sent, and Mark went to live at Marta's house where she spoiled him with Indian delicacies, berry sprouts cooked with alder and salal, and salmon eggs baked with milkweed, topped with fern.†   (source)
  • Perhaps he should make up a small kit of delicacies.†   (source)
  • I made mistakes in manners, and I didn't know delicacies that had grown up since my father left.†   (source)
  • Feed him delicacies.†   (source)
  • I inspected all the delicacies which I had never dared to do before, and I found it next to impossible to decide between them.†   (source)
  • It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the upper halls, like delicacies, baking off the oily flesh, tenderly crisping the canvases into black shavings.†   (source)
  • Tables laden with delicacies line the walls.†   (source)
  • They've prepared my favorite, lamb stew with dried plums, among other delicacies.†   (source)
  • They're considered delicacies for the eyes and the palate.'†   (source)
  • They're considered delicacies for both the eye and the palate.'†   (source)
  • Florentino Ariza brought English biscuits for tea, candied chestnuts, Greek olives, little salon delicacies that he would find on the ocean liners.†   (source)
  • She said we should each buy good things to eat, fruits and sweets, delicacies and fatty meats, whatever we had always denied ourselves but longed for.†   (source)
  • Madam's list of required delicacies was endless: gingerbread, pies of brandied peaches and preserved cherries and mincemeat, macaroons, blancmange, Jordan almonds, sugar candy, as many kinds of cake as there were fingers on both hands.†   (source)
  • Bribed police guards simply turned a blind eye at agreed times, and then whole columns of carts would drive through the ghetto gate right under their noses and with their tacit agreement, carrying food, expensive liquor, the most luxurious of delicacies, tobacco straight from Greece, French fancy goods and cosmetics.†   (source)
  • While she paid the bill with her credit card, Meggie and Mo examined all the delicacies behind the glass counter.†   (source)
  • In older to support the household expenses his daughters had opened a sewing shop, where they made felt flowers as well as guava delicacies, and wrote love notes to order.†   (source)
  • People were scarfing down the delicacies with abandon, though the despair was still perceptible in the slump of their shoulders, in the absence of smiles or laughter.†   (source)
  • He was an engaging fellow, a champion stick-fighter and a glamour boy, whose many girlfriends kept us all supplied with delicacies.†   (source)
  • We go to Congress at nine and there we stay, most earnestly engaged until three in the afternoon, then we adjourn and go to dinner with some of the nobles of Pennsylvania at four o'clock and feast on ten thousand delicacies, and sit drinking Madeira, claret and burgundy 'til six or seven.†   (source)
  • In my garden, I had every kind of tree and grew even grapes and melons," Mohammed said, his mouth, toothless except for two tusklike canines, working at the memory of his vanished delicacies.†   (source)
  • The menu included mussels, crayfish, and abalone, which made us laugh; we were dining on such delicacies every day.†   (source)
  • In the glossy shops that lined the edges of the avenues, like rows of pulsing LEDs, Japan's latest consumer electronics were available, as were the exotic delicacies of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut.†   (source)
  • Both natives and tourists alike took notice of the stately holy man as he passed crowded shop fronts and alleys bulging with merchandise, three-story discos and topless cafes where huge, amateurish billboards hawked Oriental charms above stalls offering the steamed delicacies of the noonday dim sum.†   (source)
  • After brewing green tea in a blackened tin pot, he added salt, baking soda, and goat's milk, before tenderly shaving a sliver of mar, the aged rancid yak butter the Balti prize above all other delicacies, and stirred it into the brew with a not especially clean forefinger.†   (source)
  • It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the upper halls, like delicacies, baking off the oily flesh, tenderly crisping the canvases into black shavings.†   (source)
  • When gifts of delicacies came from relatives in Germany, he gave them all away.†   (source)
  • "Ach," exclaimed his father, "it isn't his stomach, Joe, it's his palate-jaded with delicacies."†   (source)
  • The first wife knows nothing of the delicacies which the other one needs for her flower-like body and which you also enjoy.†   (source)
  • In the dining halls the older gentlemen, who had spoiled their palates with drinking, were relishing those strange delicacies of the Middle Ages—the strong flavours of whale and porpoise.†   (source)
  • So I bought a bottle of wine and the delicacies of the season and went; and of course I told myself I could use the dough she owed me and what not, but I ought to have known myself better than that.†   (source)
  • She bought two dollars' worth of delicacies: sliced tongue, smoked salmon, creamy-white slices of smoked sturgeon and crisp rolls.†   (source)
  • You could imagine him petted with small delicacies, preserved for their use in the stifling atmosphere of intimacy and respect.†   (source)
  • They carried no sheets tied up in huge bundles, no bulky wicker baskets, no prized feather beds, no boxes of delicacies, sausages, virgin-olive oils, rare cheeses; the large black satchel beside them was their only luggage.†   (source)
  • It did not occur to him that all the world might not desire such delicacies as two pounds of pork and six ounces of beef and a small pond fish.†   (source)
  • And especially did the woman complain, for she missed the delicacies she had eaten in the inner courts and she complained to her husband and the three of them complained to Wang Lung.†   (source)
  • And Cuckoo had brought cooks from the town to prepare the feast, for there were to be many delicacies such as cannot be prepared in a farmer's kitchen and the town cooks came bearing great baskets of food ready cooked and only to be heated, and they made much of themselves and flourished their grimy aprons and bustled here and there in their zeal.†   (source)
  • And going hither and thither were the vendors of sweets and fruits and nuts and of hot delicacies of sweet potatoes browned in sweet oils and little delicately spiced balls of pork wrapped in dough and steamed, and sugar cakes made from glutinous rice, and the children of the city ran out to the vendors of these things with their hands full of pennies and they bought and they ate until their skins glistened with sugar and oil.†   (source)
  • The lazarette, where such delicacies were stored, was situated beneath the cabin floor.†   (source)
  • All her interest seemed to be centered upon the delicacies placed before her.†   (source)
  • Great parcels of groceries and delicacies and dried fruits arrived from the city.†   (source)
  • He had no appetite, and they could not afford to tempt him with delicacies.†   (source)
  • His relatives had sent him these homey delicacies to help him build up some strength.†   (source)
  • It was one of Miss Chalice's delicacies that she always addressed her lovers by their surnames.†   (source)
  • Even Frank had his churlish delicacies; he never reminded her of how much she had once loved him.†   (source)
  • "Henrietta's certainly not a model of all the delicacies!" she exclaimed with bitterness.†   (source)
  • Those were dear times, when wheaten bread and fresh meat were delicacies to working people.†   (source)
  • I cannot enjoy delicacies; good things are wasted upon me.†   (source)
  • Tom got all the delicacies, Chambers got mush and milk, and clabber without sugar.†   (source)
  • You are very old fashioned in your delicacies, after all.†   (source)
  • Besides tea and coffee, cheese, honey, butter, pan-cakes of various kinds (the lady of the house loved these best), cutlets, and so on, there was generally strong beef soup, and other substantial delicacies.†   (source)
  • The old servant became very valuable to Hendon and the King; for he dropped in several times a day to 'abuse' the former, and always smuggled in a few delicacies to help out the prison bill of fare; he also furnished the current news.†   (source)
  • She doubted Mrs. Van Osburgh's reluctance, but was aware of Miss Farish's habit of ascribing her own delicacies of feeling to the persons least likely to be encumbered by them.†   (source)
  • What a supper I had of it that night, with all my friends around me; and what a meal it was, with Ben Gunn's salted goat and some delicacies and a bottle of old wine from the HISPANIOLA.†   (source)
  • It was lucky that some tins of fine preserves were stowed in a locker in my stateroom; hard bread I could always get hold of; and so he lived on stewed chicken, Pate de Foie Gras, asparagus, cooked oysters, sardines--on all sorts of abominable sham delicacies out of tins.†   (source)
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  • If you act like a bull in a china shop, the negotiations will fail. Delicacy is required.
  • I look past her, into the distance as I've been trained to, and her cold glare bores into me with the delicacy of a blunt knife.   (source)
  • I saw a delicacy in him that I had never seen on the coast.  His manners were like a form of consideration; and however small the occasion, his manners never failed.   (source)
  • Albert cleans his nails with a knife. We are surprised at this delicacy.   (source)
    delicacy = care (befitting a gentleman more than a soldier of the trenches)
  • A succulent hash arrived, and Mr. Wolfshiem, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy.   (source)
    delicacy = sensitivity and tact
  • Mr. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just laid a hand for a moment on his shoulder, and then walked quietly out of the room.   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
  • It was not an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understood it well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot.   (source)
    delicacy = gentleness
  • Delicacy to her parents made her careful not to betray such a preference of her uncle's house.   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
  • The play will be given up, and your delicacy honoured as it ought.   (source)
    delicacy = refined, gentle behavior
  • Here was again a want of delicacy and regard for others which had formerly so struck and disgusted her.   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
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  • Upon my representation of what you were suffering, he immediately, and with the greatest delicacy, ceased to urge to see you for the present.   (source)
  • It is a point of great delicacy, and you must assist us in our endeavours to choose exactly the right line of conduct.   (source)
    delicacy = requiring care and gentleness
  • But dear Maria has such a strict sense of propriety, so much of that true delicacy which one seldom meets with nowadays, Mrs. Rushworth—that wish of avoiding particularity!   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
  • Her influence, or at least the consciousness and use of it, originated in an act of kindness by Susan, which, after many hesitations of delicacy, she at last worked herself up to.   (source)
    delicacy = care not to hurt any feelings
  • "I am sorry for it," was his answer; "but in this matter it is you who are to lead. You must set the example. If others have blundered, it is your place to put them right, and shew them what true delicacy is."   (source)
    delicacy = refined, gentle behavior
  • He was in love, very much in love; and it was a love which, operating on an active, sanguine spirit, of more warmth than delicacy, made her affection appear of greater consequence because it was withheld, and determined him to have the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing her to love him.   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
  • And then he would have changed the subject, and sipped his coffee in peace over domestic matters of a calmer hue; but Mr. Yates, without discernment to catch Sir Thomas's meaning, or diffidence, or delicacy, or discretion enough to allow him to lead the discourse while he mingled among the others with the least obtrusiveness himself, would keep him on the topic of the theatre, would torment him with questions and remarks relative to it, and finally would make him hear the whole history…   (source)
    delicacy = gentle manners
  • Julia did seem inclined to admit that Maria's situation might require particular caution and delicacy—but that could not extend to her—she was at liberty; and Maria evidently considered her engagement as only raising her so much more above restraint, and leaving her less occasion than Julia to consult either father or mother.   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
  • With all the security which love of another and disesteem of him could give to the peace of mind he was attacking, his continued attentions—continued, but not obtrusive, and adapting themselves more and more to the gentleness and delicacy of her character—obliged her very soon to dislike him less than formerly.   (source)
    delicacy = refined subtlety, sensibility, and manners
  • Susan shewed that she had delicacy: pleased as she was to be mistress of property which she had been struggling for at least two years, she yet feared that her sister's judgment had been against her, and that a reproof was designed her for having so struggled as to make the purchase necessary for the tranquillity of the house.   (source)
    delicacy = desire to be well-mannered
  • I would not have the shadow of a coolness between the two whose intimacy I have been observing with the greatest pleasure, and in whose characters there is so much general resemblance in true generosity and natural delicacy as to make the few slight differences, resulting principally from situation, no reasonable hindrance to a perfect friendship.   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
  • She certainly understands you better than you are understood by the greater part of those who have known you so long; and with regard to some others, I can perceive, from occasional lively hints, the unguarded expressions of the moment, that she could define many as accurately, did not delicacy forbid it.   (source)
    delicacy = gentle manners
  • She considered it all as nonsense, as mere trifling and gallantry, which meant only to deceive for the hour; she could not but feel that it was treating her improperly and unworthily, and in such a way as she had not deserved; but it was like himself, and entirely of a piece with what she had seen before; and she would not allow herself to shew half the displeasure she felt, because he had been conferring an obligation, which no want of delicacy on his part could make a trifle to her.   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
  • To be a second time disappointed in the same way was an instance of very severe ill-luck; and his indignation was such, that had it not been for delicacy towards his friend, and his friend's youngest sister, he believed he should certainly attack the baronet on the absurdity of his proceedings, and argue him into a little more rationality.   (source)
    delicacy = gentle manners
  • My dear Sir Thomas, I perfectly comprehend you, and do justice to the generosity and delicacy of your notions, which indeed are quite of a piece with your general conduct; and I entirely agree with you in the main as to the propriety of doing everything one could by way of providing for a child one had in a manner taken into one's own hands; and I am sure I should be the last person in the world to withhold my mite upon such an occasion.   (source)
    delicacy = care and gentleness
  • And the shame!--the indelicacy!--the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it!   (source)
    indelicacy = coarseness (not of gentle standards)
    standard prefix: The prefix "in-" in indelicacy means not and reverses the meaning of delicacy. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
  • The lover knew Yolanda would not have wanted him to know about this indelicacy of her body.†   (source)
  • The woman grabbed the covers, doing her best to lessen the indelicacy of the moment.†   (source)
  • It was said with great indelicacy.†   (source)
  • My sister-in-law was of that size also, and was aware or shy of it as indelicacy, giving me the touch of her hand as though it were a smaller one.†   (source)
  • What could he mean by such horrible indelicacy?†   (source)
  • Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey the idea.†   (source)
  • But there seems an indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her so soon after this event.†   (source)
  • I felt I might, without indelicacy, because the evening she dined with us she rather suggested …. rather let me see that she would be grateful for guidance.†   (source)
  • Well, I bet now," he continued with an hysterical laugh, "that Burdovsky will accuse you of indelicacy, and reproach you with a want of respect for his mother!†   (source)
  • I could have got round any other objection; but no woman can stand a suspicion of indelicacy as to her person.†   (source)
  • But when I thought to myself what must actually have been the rude greeting (which, she made out, had been so charming), I, who knew my father's coldness and reserve, was shocked, as though at some indelicacy on his part, at the contrast between the excessive recognition bestowed on it and his never adequate geniality.†   (source)
  • She had often heard of women making money in this way through their friends: she had no more notion than most of her sex of the exact nature of the transaction, and its vagueness seemed to diminish its indelicacy.†   (source)
  • Besides insulting Burdovsky with the supposition, made in the presence of witnesses, that he was suffering from the complaint for which he had himself been treated in Switzerland, he reproached himself with the grossest indelicacy in having offered him the ten thousand roubles before everyone.†   (source)
  • In the words preceding it she had conjectured, at most, an allusion to her supposed influence over George Dorset; nor did the astonishing indelicacy of the reference diminish the likelihood of Rosedale's resorting to it.†   (source)
  • From him whom you have rendered the happiest of men, Comte de Wardes This note was in the first place a forgery; it was likewise an indelicacy.†   (source)
  • He ought never to have come; it's worse than an imprudence for people in that state to travel; it's a kind of indelicacy.†   (source)
  • She saw the indelicacy of putting himself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions with his conduct.†   (source)
  • But it was not to be avoided: he made her feel that she was the object of all; though she could not say that it was unpleasantly done, that there was indelicacy or ostentation in his manner; and sometimes, when he talked of William, he was really not unagreeable, and shewed even a warmth of heart which did him credit.†   (source)
  • No one could dispute her right to come; the house was her husband's from the moment of his father's decease; but the indelicacy of her conduct was so much the greater, and to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood's situation, with only common feelings, must have been highly unpleasing;— but in HER mind there was a sense of honor so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of the kind, by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of immoveable disgust.†   (source)
  • …that the fair hind should shrink from the place, touched with that somewhat, either of fear or frolic, of nicety or skittishness, with which nature hath bedecked all females, or hath at least instructed them how to put it on; lest, through the indelicacy of males, the Samean mysteries should be pryed into by unhallowed eyes: for, at the celebration of these rites, the female priestess cries out with her in Virgil (who was then, probably, hard at work on such celebration), _—Procul, o…†   (source)
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  • The delicacy of the artifacts makes them difficult to move.
  • My mother does not watch R-rated movies. She says they offend her sense of modesty and delicacy.
    delicacy = fragility of emotional well being that is easily distressed by something that is offensive or disturbing
  • ...if you destroy delicacy and a sense of shame in a young girl, you deprave her very fast.   (source)
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  • Her delicacy in blending flavors makes her an outstanding chef.
    delicacy = elegance or fineness
  • I could see pieces of Pasiphae in her, but only if I searched: her chin, the delicacy of her collarbone.   (source)
    delicacy = pleasant subtlety or fineness
  • I cut open her shirt with my dagger, jolted for a moment by the delicacy of her skin.   (source)
  • My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings.   (source)
    delicacy = subtlety or fineness
  • ...if indeed he has now delicacy of language enough to embody his own ideas.   (source)
  • He, who had married a daughter to Mr. Rushworth: romantic delicacy was certainly not to be expected from him.   (source)
    delicacy = pleasant subtlety or fineness
  • She was nice only from natural delicacy, but he had been brought up in a school of luxury and epicurism.   (source)
    delicacy = subtlety of taste
  • I have seen good actresses fail in the part. Simplicity, indeed, is beyond the reach of almost every actress by profession. It requires a delicacy of feeling which they have not.   (source)
    delicacy = pleasant subtlety or fineness
  • She had none of Fanny's delicacy of taste, of mind, of feeling; she saw Nature, inanimate Nature, with little observation; her attention was all for men and women, her talents for the light and lively.   (source)
  • I do not consider her as meaning to wound my feelings. The evil lies yet deeper: in her total ignorance, unsuspiciousness of there being such feelings; ... Hers are faults of principle, Fanny; of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, vitiated mind.   (source)
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  • He had every well-grounded reason for solid attachment; he knew her to have all the worth that could justify the warmest hopes of lasting happiness with her; her conduct at this very time, by speaking the disinterestedness and delicacy of her character (qualities which he believed most rare indeed), was of a sort to heighten all his wishes, and confirm all his resolutions.   (source)
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  • Although she herself was lumpy and inelegant, she had high standards of delicacy and a long list of things she wanted us to pretend to be: flowering trees, butterflies, the gentle breezes.†   (source)
  • The eggs ripened and grew ever more disgusting, apparently in equal proportion to their delicacy.†   (source)
  • Straightening her posture, Sofia laid her fingers on the keys; then with the utmost delicacy, she began to play.†   (source)
  • It seems impossible to imagine that there was a time when I looked upon a live sea turtle as a ten-course meal of great delicacy, a blessed respite from fish.†   (source)
  • It would be pink-tagged o warn luggage handlers of its extreme delicacy.†   (source)
  • As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy-enchiladas.†   (source)
  • Scrimgeour hesitated, then said, in what was evidently supposed to be a tone of delicacy, The Ministry can offer you all sorts of protection, you know, Harry.†   (source)
  • Their huge wingspans-the delicate pink membranes stretched across them-so thin they were translucent-everything reinforced the delicacy of the dactyls.†   (source)
  • I saw that the delicacy and concern were necessary to her, because they were a thrilling reminder of everything new and delicious.†   (source)
  • The delicacy with which Owen spoke of this—and his own, physical delicacy—stood in absurd contrast to the huge, heavy slabs of rock we observed on the flatbed trucks, and to the violent noise of the quarry, the piercing sound of the rock chisels on the channeling machine—THE CHANNEL BAR, Owen called it—and the dynamite.†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • The sweetness of her, the delicacy, his childhood friend, and now in danger of becoming unreachable.†   (source)
  • They are not like the ladies of Kweilin, who I always imagined savored their food with a certain detached delicacy.†   (source)
  • In that first week at the Creek, the cafeteria served fried chicken, chicken-fried steak, and fried okra, which marked my first foray into the delicacy that is the fried vegetable.†   (source)
  • The delicacy of her face, the perfection of her pure virginal body contrasted with the passion, the lust, that leapt from her eyes, from her every pore.†   (source)
  • You made tofu and dried bean curd and caught snakes (they were a delicacy) and trapped insects.†   (source)
  • Catelyn was past delicacy.†   (source)
  • SHE IS BOUND BY TIES FROM WHICH NOTHING BUT DEATH CAN RELEASE HER, AND WHATEVER HER SUFFERING AND HER WRONGS IS COMPELLED BY DELICACY AND A REGARD FOR PERSONAL REPUTATION ….†   (source)
  • …into another section of the control console with the combined result that the Guide started to explain to anyone who cared to listen about the best ways of smuggling Antarean parakeet glands out of Antares (an Antarean parakeet gland stuck on a small stick is a revolting but much-sought-after cocktail delicacy and very large sums of money are often paid for them by very rich idiots who want to impress other very rich idiots), and the ship suddenly dropped out of the sky like a stone.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Barbour, with her characteristic delicacy, managed to skirt the topic even in the midst of the cardboard boxes and open suitcases that were appearing all over the house; Mr. Barbour and the younger siblings all seemed excited but Andy regarded the prospect with frank horror.†   (source)
  • As you probably know, chilled cucumber soup is a delicacy that is best enjoyed on a very hot day.†   (source)
  • I don't care if it is a delicacy in France; I'm not eating anything that once walked around and quacked.†   (source)
  • "You must undress sometimes," I said to Alpha one day, abandoning delicacy in favor of information.†   (source)
  • To women as yet unaware of his private obsessions, it was an appealing delicacy.†   (source)
  • "The important thing about camels," he said, "is that camel meat is considered a delicacy."†   (source)
  • She opened it and rooted through the contents with all the delicacy of a dog digging up a flower bed.†   (source)
  • "We?" said Jace, with a sinister delicacy.†   (source)
  • "I don't need much delicacy, as a rule:' she said shortly.†   (source)
  • I move slowly, shuffling, like my bones hurt, a feverish delicacy descending on me.†   (source)
  • The delicacy of his position here, alone and dependent upon the Convention and the dictum familia of the Great Houses, fretted him.†   (source)
  • The fact that he had acquired a taste for that little appreciated delicacy known as chicken manure didn't help, either.†   (source)
  • Delicacy!†   (source)
  • St. Louis also introduced me to thin-sliced ham (I thought it a delicacy), jelly beans and peanuts mixed, lettuce on sandwich bread, Victrolas and family loyalty.†   (source)
  • "Well, he said owin' to the extreme delicacy of my problem, and since there was no evidence of criminal intent, he wouldn't be above throwin' a little dust in a juryman's eyes—whatever that means—and then, oh I don't know."†   (source)
  • But we must tread carefully, for this is a situation of the utmost delicacy.†   (source)
  • Bulgar pilaf was a choice delicacy to her.†   (source)
  • But I also knew the delicacy of our talks with the government; any agreements that we arrived at depended in part on their confidentiality.†   (source)
  • Because we're in mixed company, for delicacy's sake, I can only say this once.†   (source)
  • We fade in on George and Gracie leaving a posh dinner party where the buffet table groans with every possible delicacy.†   (source)
  • Cowslips are a delicacy among rabbits, and as a rule there are very few left by late May in the neighborhood of even a small warren.†   (source)
  • I was treated with great delicacy.†   (source)
  • He was an expert silversmith, praised all over the swampland for the delicacy of his work.†   (source)
  • I tried to choose my words with delicacy.†   (source)
  • Desperately, but with all the delicacy I could manage, I pulled my shield even tighter against the sparks of my friends, peeling it back carefully from Kate while trying to keep it around Garrett, making it a thin skin between them.†   (source)
  • His love mostly came out in awkwardness, for their delicacy frightened him.†   (source)
  • Now eat a few more bites of the delicacy I brought you from the mess cabinet!†   (source)
  • He ordered a small bottle of rice wine and a small plate of pig's head meat—a wonderful delicacy.†   (source)
  • She'd already heard horror stories of what to expect: that classes were taught and information passed on with all the delicacy of a fire hose opened to maximum velocity.†   (source)
  • It is an image of almost unbearable delicacy and gentleness.†   (source)
  • They're a delicacy, Mandy.†   (source)
  • The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely.†   (source)
  • Here …. here was a Butterfly with little or no voice—but she had the grace, the delicacy ….†   (source)
  • Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy.†   (source)
  • He was as black and silent as a panther, liked harn and every known type of marmalade, and whenever there was company and the family forgot to lock him up he would steal into the dining room and slink around the table, removing with the greatest delicacy all his favorite dishes, and of course none of the diners dared to interfere.†   (source)
  • People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the hospital.†   (source)
  • The difference is that shoemaking requires delicacy, while quiltmaking isa heavy chore.†   (source)
  • The prisoner stepped back, looked down like an actor searching for his mark onstage, then bowed to this executioner, who returned the gesture and replaced the noose with the delicacy of a husband garlanding his new bride.†   (source)
  • I asked with scalpel-like delicacy.†   (source)
  • Engraved onto the surface of the host, with a printmaker's delicacy, was a picture of me.†   (source)
  • She had prepared a local delicacy, los cabritos (goat).†   (source)
  • "I'm sure you understand, senator, that the delicacy of an investigation of this nature often means progress is slow.†   (source)
  • The politeness, the elegance, the softness, the delicacy is extreme.†   (source)
  • The delicacy of her husband's manner, the subtlety of his mind How could I have understood so little?†   (source)
  • He shapes it into a narrow cylinder then rolls the paper, licking the edge with the delicacy of a preening cat.†   (source)
  • At least she had a whiff of delicacy.†   (source)
  • She lifted it up with surprising delicacy and dragged her quivering nostrils along its length.†   (source)
  • Her hand was delicate, and delicacy drew him.†   (source)
  • Damn it, I explained the delicacy of my position to him.†   (source)
  • It's considered a delicacy by flies and maggots.†   (source)
  • It could have been some vile-tasting liquid that they consider a delicacy here, but would make me puke.†   (source)
  • The delicacy of her limbs testified that they had not existed long enough for much to gravitate to them.†   (source)
  • This elegant little biped has long been valued as a delicacy.†   (source)
  • The halfling sat with his eyes closed and his mouth opened wide, as though he was about to take an enjoyable and enormous bite out of some unseen delicacy.†   (source)
  • Crawfish are a Louisiana delicacy, and we've harvested them to eat and sell.†   (source)
  • And even as I admired her for that simple gesture, I was battling to prevent myself from relishing the sweet delicacy she was to my kind.†   (source)
  • Even picking wax from his ear was an operation to be done with great delicacy and speed.†   (source)
  • In the midday heat she felt as though she were trapped inside her own private oven, roasting slowly, an ISIS delicacy.†   (source)
  • The young lady, you might say, is under temporary escort—a matter of some delicacy.†   (source)
  • They had pork chops—all they could eat—chitlins, bacon, hams, sausage and the supreme delicacy, for special occasions only, fried pig brains.†   (source)
  • He still had a few cans of dog food for Graf, but he could foresee a time when humans might look upon dog food as a delicacy.†   (source)
  • Surprised at her own delicacy, under the circumstances, she also wondered if she had not at the same time soiled Emmi's spotless floor.†   (source)
  • She had dignity, native intelligence, feminine delicacy of the highest order, and character that royalty might have envied.†   (source)
  • " "I thought I might scrape off some of his delicacy.†   (source)
  • But as you see, it was a matter of the greatest delicacy.†   (source)
  • Don't you force him, the arrogant and pampered boy, to live in a hut with two old banana-eaters, to whom even rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts can't be his, whose hearts are old and quiet and beats in a different pace than his?†   (source)
  • He was busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one carefully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy.†   (source)
  • His face had an aristocratic quality, the fugitive spark and reticent delicacy that give an impression of remoteness and are sometimes found in people of a complex, mixed parentage.†   (source)
  • Varys lifted the knife with exaggerated delicacy and ran a thumb along its edge.†   (source)
  • He moved with a strange delicacy and grace, as if he were close to dancing.†   (source)
  • With a delicacy surprising in such a big man, he dabbed at the blood welling from her broken lip.†   (source)
  • He moved with surprising delicacy for such a massive man.†   (source)
  • Next they went to Kilf's statue, which was carved with exquisite delicacy out of pale blue stone.†   (source)
  • Something touched my lip, and I crunched into the delicacy he offered.†   (source)
  • At the same time I find myself being a little proud of her delicacy.†   (source)
  • While Max debated how to respond, Connor answered with his usual delicacy.†   (source)
  • Something tells me that this friendship will require trust more than delicacy.†   (source)
  • Measures must be taken with great caution and delicacy to undeceive them.†   (source)
  • The Institute had not purged his son of his reserve and delicacy.†   (source)
  • As Mahtob investigated this special delicacy, Amahl discussed our situation.†   (source)
  • The main course was chicken, a rare Iranian delicacy, first boiled with onions, then fried in oil.†   (source)
  • IN HUMAN AFFAIRS OF DANGER and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry.†   (source)
  • And the scent—can you smell the balance of strength and delicacy, the musical notes of the ink's perfume?†   (source)
  • Occasionally he even found dog food, which the dogs gobbled from his palm like the most uncommon delicacy.†   (source)
  • "With exquisite delicacy and tact," Sullivan said, "Jefferey, at a meeting of the Committee, persuaded Daniel, come to Judgment, to add the Western men to the list of his nominations."†   (source)
  • Approaching the counter, the Count would ask the young lady with the light blue apron for a mille-feuille (how aptly named) and watch with admiration as she used a teaspoon to gently nudge the delicacy from a silver spade onto a porcelain plate.†   (source)
  • …and if we missed it we had to stand around for a while waiting for the next bus, but among its stops was a shopping plaza with a chilly, gleaming, understaffed supermarket where Boris stole steaks for us, butter, boxes of tea, cucumbers (a great delicacy for him), packages of bacon —even cough syrup once, when I had a cold — slipping them in the cutaway lining of his ugly gray raincoat (a man's coat, much too big for him, with drooping shoulders and a grim Eastern Bloc look about it, a…†   (source)
  • Minerva thinks they've been assigned to us to impress the OAS with the prison system's delicacy towards women prisoners.†   (source)
  • I feel a delicacy in having my men suggest to yours artistic arrangements, forms and decorations of exhibits, without your full approval, which I hereby respectfully ask.†   (source)
  • Images he didn't understand occupied his mind's eye: a dark, cobbled alleyway, a dog limping through the rain, an elderly Oriental man holding a slender length of cane with great delicacy.†   (source)
  • And at the center of every table—whether it was hosted by the high or the humble—was a serving of caviar, for it is the genius of this particular delicacy that it may be enjoyed by the ounce or the pound.†   (source)
  • As always, her careful delicacy somehow made this makeshift meal on a rooftop seem like a formal dinner in some nobleman's hall.†   (source)
  • What a delicacy of youth.†   (source)
  • Deftly, with a delicacy surprising in such a big man, he began to scrape away the black leaves and dried blue mud from Drogo's chest.†   (source)
  • "The boy is Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale," Catelyn reminded her, "and these are not times for delicacy.†   (source)
  • It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy.†   (source)
  • Delicacy is a personal shortcoming.†   (source)
  • Despite the delicacy of his features, there was no doubt that Grimrr was male, given the hard, sinewy muscles of his arms and chest, the narrowness of his hips, and the coiled power of his stride as he sauntered down the length of the hall toward Nasuada.†   (source)
  • On the screen, Philby is answering another question: "In the second place, the Burgess-Maclean affair has raised issues of great"—he pauses— "delicacy."†   (source)
  • This …. delicacy puzzles me.†   (source)
  • Delicacy.†   (source)
  • I enjoy the coolness of things, the flat ginger ale I'm given to drink, the delicacy of taste, afterward.†   (source)
  • A woman cleared away the couscous and brought tea and baklava, an unheard of delicacy in the Syrian portion of the caliphate.†   (source)
  • Holding his breath, he deposited it in his right palm, centering it over his gedwey ignasia with as much delicacy as he could muster.†   (source)
  • She reached out and rested her hand lightly on the gnarled root beside her, as if touching, with consummate delicacy, the shoulder of a friend or lover.†   (source)
  • She was able to see the name of the Estimable Senorita Rebeca Buendia, written in the same methodical hand, with the same green ink, and the same delicacy of words with which the instructions for the operation of the pianola were written, and she folded the letter with the tips of her fingers and hid it in her bosom, looking at Amparo Moscote with an expression of endless and unconditional gratitude and a silent promise of complicity unto death.†   (source)
  • I said with my usual delicacy and tact.†   (source)
  • The smell too is indescribably strange—virtually everyone carries some kind of hometown delicacy: I have my apples, pears, sorghum sweets, snakeskin and dried shrimps, but who knows what others are carrying.†   (source)
  • Quail eggs are such a delicacy.†   (source)
  • Such delicacy exacerbated the rest of the crew, who were usually so hungry by suppertime that they could ill abide waits.†   (source)
  • And yet how could anyone understand such things: that delicacy masked a most unnatural coldness; that subtle thought had twisted itself into perversion.†   (source)
  • A local woman, a cook named Tsugi Kaiama, came to the rescue of the boys' palates with an inviting delicacy: juicy hamburgers.†   (source)
  • That two such masses should touch with inimitable delicacy prompted Alessandro to think of the sea and the shore.†   (source)
  • One hangs from a meat hook, stuck through the solar plexus, another has trees and flowers painted all over her face like fine tattooing, with a delicacy I wouldn't have suspected from Jody.†   (source)
  • His hands were thin and spidery and when stretched out over the hide of a basketball had the delicacy and fragile beauty of a fish skeleton.†   (source)
  • Though she was wary of the herbalist, she knew that Angela had helped the Varden with matters of the utmost delicacy and importance-like healing Eragon-and had asked for nothing in return.†   (source)
  • He had not taken a cent of money from her, and they seldom passed an hour together without him complimenting her in some way--usually on her voice, or her looks, or the fine texture of her hair, or some delicacy of manner.†   (source)
  • She empathized, then, with the difficulty and the delicacy of what Garven was trying to do, a trial only made harder by the strange nature of the elves.†   (source)
  • The kitchen overflowed with every delicacy you could imagine, wrapped as if it had come from the most expensive stores on the Via Condotti.†   (source)
  • So absorbing was the attention required by the delicacy of his artistry that in a short time he had aged more than during all the years of the war, and his position had twisted his spine and the close work had used up his eyesight, but the implacable concentration awarded him with a peace of the spirit.†   (source)
  • I apprehend that he mistakes his ground, and that this court is to be treated with decency and delicacy.†   (source)
  • I pushed the rare delicacy of potatoes through a colander with a wooden mallet that resembled a bowling pin; a final beating with the mallet turned the mush into mashed potatoes.†   (source)
  • The veins on the top of her foot had the same fine shape and extraordinary delicacy as her daughter's.†   (source)
  • And yet, underlying all this, as the color of his blood lay under his dark sunburn, was both delicacy and reticence.†   (source)
  • On the floor of the chamber, the dwarves had built a wooden scaffold sixty feet in diameter, and within the enclosure of fitted oak beams, they were, piece by precious piece, reassembling the shattered star sapphire with the utmost care and delicacy.†   (source)
  • Wibird was "slovenly and lazy," yet—and here was the wonder—he had great "delicacy" of mind, judgment, and humor.†   (source)
  • In novels and in the theater, bodies were treated with delicacy: a gentle touch, a kiss, the featherweight pull of a shroud that then parachuted over the face of the deceased in a nearly imperceptible puff of air.†   (source)
  • When I reflect upon the importance, delicacy, intricacy and danger of the service, I feel a great deal of diffidence in myself.†   (source)
  • It is one of those cities where childhood is a pleasure and memory a flow of honey; one of those cities that never lets go, that insinuates its precedence by the insistent delicacy of its beauty.†   (source)
  • LUCIANA FOLLOWED Orfeo, slipping into the room so quietly that her brother would not immediately have noticed had it not been for the striking picture she now presented, in that she was no longer thin, and what had been lost in delicacy had been returned in grace and composure.†   (source)
  • "She is a sweet girl, delicacy and sensibility are read in every feature," Nabby wrote of Patsy, "and her manners are in unison with all that is amiable and lovely; she is very young."†   (source)
  • The woman's hands, with their length and thinness and their pale blue veins, looked exactly like Abigail's hands; and I wondered if Charleston women all came to have the samelovely hands, if a lifetime of handling flowers and linen aged their hands with a special softness and delicacy.†   (source)
  • But it was not her diminutiveness that left the strongest impression on me; rather, it was a quality of beleaguered delicacy, as though her spirit had endured the same heedless inattention as her garden.†   (source)
  • Most of the time they held in place and stared at him with their round gray eyes until they sailed away with a feminine flutter of wings that he found beautiful not only for its delicacy and grace, but because the sound echoed through what then became an exquisite silence.†   (source)
  • The dresses and beauty of the performers were enchanting, but no sooner did the dance commence that I felt my delicacy wounded, and I was shamed to be seen looking at them.†   (source)
  • I had a separate dish set by me of which no one was to partake; and every delicate preserve was brought out to treat me with in the kind-est manner …. and though I felt very grateful, it appeared so strongly to stamp me with unfitness that often I would not eat my delicacy, and thus gave offense.†   (source)
  • I could point out to tourists who happened by while I was reading on the wicker couch on the lower piazza, the enormous stone quoins at the entranceway, the exceptional stuccowork in those princely downstairs rooms, and the intricate delicacy of the woodwork.†   (source)
  • She fell in love with it at once — the three square windows that looked out on the blue, swirling water astern, the low cushioned benches round three sides of the table, the swinging silver lamp overhead (Dwarfs' work, she knew at once by its exquisite delicacy) and the flat gold image of Aslan the Lion on the forward wall above the door.†   (source)
  • And I realize how faulty were my own perceptions, how clumsily I handled the situation, with what lack of wit and with what ineffectiveness did I deal with Nathan at a moment when supreme delicacy was called for.†   (source)
  • He repaid her with the knightly delicacy to be expected of so fine a gentleman, and never tolerated visitors, male or female, whose presence would have disturbed her peaceful, spinsterish world.†   (source)
  • The exciting thing they learned was that in his native Central America the armadillo was considered a delicacy.†   (source)
  • He reached up with his free hand, and using the utmost delicacy, plucked a little something from the edge of her upper lip; it was, she realized, a crumb of the chocolate she had eaten, now held between his thumb and forefinger, and she watched with grave wonder as he moved his tar-stained fingers slowly toward his lips and deposited the tiny chestnut-brown flake into his mouth.†   (source)
  • There was always some little delicacy, very special and good--foie gras or a tossed salad, pastry bought at Lang's Bakery just across Main Street.†   (source)
  • Galiullin knows who he is, and he knows that I am his wife, but he has had the delicacy-I can't value it too highly-never to refer to it, though goodness knows he goes mad with rage at the sound of Strel-nikov's name.†   (source)
  • And so the Gestapo goon, pressing Sophie up against a damp brick wall, made no effort to conceal his contempt for her doltish Polack dodge, extracting a penknife from the pocket of his jacket and inserting the blade with relaxed, almost informal delicacy into that bulgingly bogus placenta, leering as he did so.†   (source)
  • He can starve on delicacy.†   (source)
  • However, his disapproval of violence was based less on ideology than on a perverse delicacy; with all this apparent hand-wringing, he clung staunchly to the obsession that had for so long dominated and suffused his being: he began methodically to philosophize about the necessity of eliminating Jews from all walks of life, commencing with Academe.†   (source)
  • My mission was of some delicacy, not fit for the ear of a stranger.†   (source)
  • He rubbed his paunch as though he were eating a delicacy.†   (source)
  • "Oh, twah-twah," said Luke, with mincing delicacy, as the boys sniggered, "sweet twah-twah!†   (source)
  • As long as nothing else was broken, this being his delicacy about the hymen.†   (source)
  • What a burden modesty and delicacy were!†   (source)
  • You will see I am a man of extreme delicacy.†   (source)
  • I was referring to the delicacy of our personal relationship.†   (source)
  • Mere excess in food is much less valuable than delicacy.†   (source)
  • He, out of delicacy, was sitting on the ground behind the house.†   (source)
  • Delicacy forbids my putting more concerning him on paper.†   (source)
  • Certainly not if I was there, and there wasn't any reason for me to avert my face out of delicacy.†   (source)
  • There was nothing beyond this—nothing that surpassed it in precision, delicacy, and wholeness.†   (source)
  • Maybe that was too much delicacy, but I was at an exaggerating age.†   (source)
  • Or have I been misinformed about the delicacy of our Southern womanhood?†   (source)
  • They pretended to great delicacy, modesty and innocence.†   (source)
  • The sketch was small, hardly more than a miniature in colored inks, but the artist had contrived to give the flesh tones a waxwork delicacy of texture.†   (source)
  • Between them Clara put a basin full of hot cornbread baked with squash seeds,—an Indian delicacy comparable to raisin bread among the whites.†   (source)
  • The drawing was done in water-color, with miraculous delicacy, mounted on cardboard, covered with a veil of tissue paper.†   (source)
  • It was characteristic of an old, atavistic callousness that went with her delicacy that, even at this crisis, she did not think it unreasonable to put Sebastian in Rex's charge on the journey to Dr. Borethus, and Rex, having failed her in that matter, went on to Monte Carlo, where he completed her rout.†   (source)
  • The son knew that it was not, who would have been first to fight the aspersion were it to come from another: that there was delicacy of behavior and thought in the old man.†   (source)
  • Delicacy was the excuse then.†   (source)
  • Then he bought pork and beef and mandarin fish and bamboo sprouts and chestnuts, and he bought a snarl of dried birds' nests from the south to brew for soup, and he bought dried shark's fins and every delicacy he knew he bought and then he waited, if that burning, restless impatience within him could be called a waiting.†   (source)
  • I was sick when I had her,' she explained, as if to excuse the child's delicacy which had led to all this inconvenience.†   (source)
  • Perhaps this was due to the same tedious and unremitting husbandry which had enabled him to support mother and sister and marry and raise a family on the proceeds of that store which ten years ago had fitted into a single wagon; or perhaps it was some innate sense of delicacy and fitness (which his sister and daughter did not seem to possess, by the way) regarding the prospective son-in-law whom just two months ago he had been instrumental in getting out of jail.†   (source)
  • After letting this sink in he remarked in a slightly ironic tone that obviously this was a "delicate topic" and he could enter into the young lady's feelings, but--and here his voice grew sterner--his duty obliged him to waive considerations of delicacy.†   (source)
  • The anxsthetized area was clearly defined by the patient and after a time the doctor's fragile delicacy was exhausted and he said it would be better to have an Xray.†   (source)
  • He just sat as before, his hands in his trousers pockets, his shoulders hugged inward and hunched, his face lowered and he looking somehow curiously smaller than he actually was because of his actual height and spareness—that quality of delicacy about the bones, articulation, which even at twenty still had something about it, some last echo about it, of adolescence—that is, as compared with the cherubic burliness of the other who faced him, who looked younger, whose very superiority in…†   (source)
  • A group of colored pavilions clung to the mountainside with none of the grim deliberation of a Rhineland castle, but rather with the chance delicacy of flower petals impaled upon a crag.†   (source)
  • It was due, I suppose, to the fact that he was spoilt as a child; because of his nervous delicacy; and that delicacy excused his extreme irritability.†   (source)
  • This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on gluttony of Delicacy, not gluttony of Excess.†   (source)
  • …been an afternoon of low cloud and summer squalls, so overcast that at times I had stopped work and roused Julia from the light trance in which she sat—she had sat so often; I never tired of painting her, forever finding in her new wealth and delicacy—until at length we had gone early to our baths and, on coming down, dressed for dinner, in the last half-hour of the day, we found the world transformed; the sun had emerged; the wind had fallen to a soft breeze which gently stirred the…†   (source)
  • …impatient, limited mind; a conventional mind entirely accepting his own standard of what is honest, what is moral, without a shadow of doubt accepting this is a good man; that is a good woman; I get a sense of Leslie Stephen, the muscular agnostic; cheery, hearty; always cracking up sense and manliness; and crying down sentiment and vagueness, yet putting in a dab of sentiment in the right place—"I will say no more … exquisite sensibility … thoroughly masculine …. feminine delicacy ….†   (source)
  • His disease, which had thrust out its branches to all parts of his body, gave him an appearance of almost transparent delicacy.†   (source)
  • Originally a big man, of the Commissioner's stature, well-formed, well-favored, he had more delicacy of spirit than the Commissioner, and of course Dingbat wasn't a patch on him.†   (source)
  • If challenged, she would say she was doing this to avoid waste; in reality she does it because the particular shade of delicacy to which we have enslaved her is offended by the sight of more food than she happens to want.†   (source)
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