All 11 Uses of
subtle
in
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- He felt some dark presence moving irresistibly upon him from the darkness, a presence subtle and murmurous as a flood filling him wholly with itself.†
Chpt 2
- Its murmur besieged his ears like the murmur of some multitude in sleep; its subtle streams penetrated his being.†
Chpt 2
- The devil, once a shining angel, a son of the morning, now a foul fiend came in the shape of a serpent, the subtlest of all the beasts of the field.†
Chpt 3
- The serpent, the most subtle beast of the field.†
Chpt 3 *
- He had felt a subtle, dark, and murmurous presence penetrate his being...
Chpt 4 *subtle = hidden and harmful
- Often when he had confessed his doubts and scruples—some momentary inattention at prayer, a movement of trivial anger in his soul, or a subtle wilfulness in speech or act—he was bidden by his confessor to name some sin of his past life before absolution was given him.†
Chpt 4
- Some instinct, waking at these memories, stronger than education or piety, quickened within him at every near approach to that life, an instinct subtle and hostile, and armed him against acquiescence.†
Chpt 4
- …names on the dusky flyleaf and, even for so poor a Latinist as he, the dusky verses were as fragrant as though they had lain all those years in myrtle and lavender and vervain; but yet it wounded him to think that he would never be but a shy guest at the feast of the world's culture and that the monkish learning, in terms of which he was striving to forge out an esthetic philosophy, was held no higher by the age he lived in than the subtle and curious jargons of heraldry and falconry.†
Chpt 5
- Even the legendary craft of the company, a craft subtler and more secret than its fabled books of secret subtle wisdom, had not fired his soul with the energy of apostleship.†
Chpt 5
- Even the legendary craft of the company, a craft subtler and more secret than its fabled books of secret subtle wisdom, had not fired his soul with the energy of apostleship.†
Chpt 5
- —Ay, Stephen said somewhat bitterly, bright, agile, impassible and, above all, subtle.†
Chpt 5
Definitions:
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(subtle as in: a subtle poison) working in an indirect or hidden way
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(subtle as in: a subtle shade of blue) understated so as not to draw excess attention