Sample Sentences for
delicacy
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

delicacy as in:  eat the delicacy

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Chocolate covered ants are a delicacy of Columbia's Guane Indians.
delicacy = a rare and expensive type of food
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    They serve bird nest soup and other Chinese delicacies.
    delicacies = rare and expensive types of food
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    Our latest delicacy is piccalilli.  (source)
    delicacy = rare and delicious food
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    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
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    Not to model flashy costumes and eat delicacies.  (source)
    delicacies = rare and expensive types of foods
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    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)
    delicacies = prized foods
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    Ekwefi even gave her such delicacies as eggs, which children were rarely allowed to eat because such food tempted them to steal.  (source)
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    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)
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    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
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    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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    Even the servants had stopped to watch her, holding trays of delicacies aloft.†  (source)
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    They tempted him with delicacies but he waved them away and drank his tea.†  (source)
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    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)
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    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)
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delicacy as in:  discuss with delicacy

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She is admired for her delicacy in negotiations.
delicacy = sensitivity and tact
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    If you act like a bull in a china shop, the negotiations will fail. Delicacy is required.
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    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)
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    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)
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    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
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    The woman grabbed the covers, doing her best to lessen the indelicacy of the moment.†  (source)
    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.
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    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
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    The lover knew Yolanda would not have wanted him to know about this indelicacy of her body.†  (source)
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    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
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    Indelicacy is too mild a term to convey the idea.†  (source)
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    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)
    delicacy = sensitivity and tact
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    It was said with great indelicacy.†  (source)
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    Delicacy to her parents made her careful not to betray such a preference of her uncle's house.  (source)
    Delicacy = care and gentleness
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    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)
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delicacy as in:  offend her delicacy

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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
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    The delicacy of the artifacts makes them difficult to move.
    delicacy = fragility
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    There was a certain delicacy to the way he moved--as though he might easily break.
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delicacy as in:  delicacy of the brushwork

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The lacework was done with great delicacy.
delicacy = pleasant subtlety or fineness
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    Her delicacy in blending flavors makes her an outstanding chef.
    delicacy = elegance or fineness
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    Their huge wingspans-the delicate pink membranes stretched across them-so thin they were translucent-everything reinforced the delicacy of the dactyls.  (source)
    delicacy = delicate fineness
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    I cut open her shirt with my dagger, jolted for a moment by the delicacy of her skin.  (source)
    delicacy = pleasant subtlety or fineness
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    My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings.  (source)
    delicacy = subtlety or fineness
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    ...if indeed he has now delicacy of language enough to embody his own ideas.  (source)
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    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)
    delicacy = pleasant subtlety or fineness
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    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)
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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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    He, who had married a daughter to Mr. Rushworth: romantic delicacy was certainly not to be expected from him.  (source)
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    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
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    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)
    delicacy = pleasant subtlety or fineness
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