All 6 Uses of

delicacy
in
The Age of Innocence

The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done.†
Chpt 2

delicacies = things that are rare or expensive -- usually prized foods

"The doctors want my husband to feel that he is in his own home; otherwise he would be so wretched that the climate would not do him any good," she explained, winter after winter, to the sympathising Philadelphians and Baltimoreans; and Mr. Welland, beaming across a breakfast table miraculously supplied with the most varied delicacies, was presently saying to Archer: "You see, my dear fellow, we camp—we literally camp.†
Chpt 16

delicacies = things that are rare or expensive -- usually prized foods

"Then it's NOT postponed?" she continued, with an insistence so unlike her that he felt the blood rising to his face, as if he were blushing for her unwonted lapse from all the traditional delicacies.†
Chpt 28 *

"Mercy—" moaned Mrs. Archer, evidently perceiving the uselessness of trying to ascribe the actions of foreigners to a sense of delicacy.†
Chpt 5

I respect your scruple, sir; but in this case I believe true delicacy requires you to do as I ask.†
Chpt 11

Definitions:

(1) (delicacy as in: eat the delicacy)
something that is rare or expensive -- usually a prized food
(2) (delicacy as in: discuss with delicacy)
care and gentleness -- especially speaking or acting with sensitivity and tact
(3) (delicacy as in: offend her delicacy)
the quality of being easily hurt or damaged

(often referring to the fragility of someone's emotional well being when it is easily distressed by something that is offensive or disturbing)
(4) (delicacy as in: delicacy of the brushwork)
pleasant subtlety or fineness