All 9 Uses of
subtle
in
Invisible Man by Ellison
- I'm convinced it was the product of a subtle magic, the alchemy of moonlight; the school a flower-studded wasteland, the rocks sunken, the dry winds hidden, the lost crickets chirping to yellow butterflies.†
Chpt 2
- Sometimes it appeared as though they played some vast and complicated game with me and the rest of the school folk, a game whose goal was laughter and whose rules and subtleties I could never grasp.
Chpt 3 *subtleties = distinctions that are hard to notice
- I would be basically the same, I thought, stirring my coffee, yet so subtly changed as to intrigue those who had never been North.†
Chpt 9
- I listened intensely, aware of the form and movement of sentences and grasping the now subtle rhythmical differences between progressions of sound that questioned and those that made a statement.†
Chpt 11
- It was a newness too subtle to put into thought, but there it was.†
Chpt 16
- And now close up, leaning tall and relaxed, his arms outstretched stiffly upon the table, I saw the broad, taut span of his knuckles upon the dark grain of the wood, the muscular, sweatered arms, the curving line of the chest rising to the easy pulsing of his throat, to the square, smooth chin, and saw a small X-shaped patch of adhesive upon the subtly blended, velvet-over-stone, granite-over-bone, Afro-Anglo-Saxon contour of his cheek.†
Chpt 17
- I was heading for the door, torn between anger and a fierce excitement, hearing the phone click down as I started past and feeling her swirl against me and I was lost, for the conflict between the ideological and the biological, duty and desire, had become too subtly confused.†
Chpt 19
- We have here not only an extraordinary tactician, but one who has an appreciation for subtleties of expression.†
Chpt 22
- They were the subtle thinkers-would this be treachery?†
Chpt 23 *
Definitions:
-
(subtle as in: a subtle difference or thinker) not obvious, but understandable by someone with adequate sensitivity and relevant knowledge (perhaps depending upon fine distinctions)
or:
capable of understanding things that require sensitivity and relevant knowledge (perhaps understanding fine distinctions)
-
(subtle as in: a subtle shade of blue) understated so as not to draw excess attention