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Subtle   /sˈətəl/   Listen
adjective
Subtile  adj.  
1.
Thin; not dense or gross; rare; as, subtile air; subtile vapor; a subtile medium.
2.
Delicately constituted or constructed; nice; fine; delicate; tenuous; finely woven. "A sotil (subtile) twine's thread." "More subtile web Arachne can not spin." "I do distinguish plain Each subtile line of her immortal face."
3.
Acute; piercing; searching. "The slow disease and subtile pain."
4.
Characterized by nicety of discrimination; discerning; delicate; refined; subtle. (In this sense now commonly written subtle) "The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtile, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humor and so little wit in their literature. The genius of the Italians, on the contrary, is acute, profound, and sensual, but not subtile; hence what they think to be humorous, is merely witty." "The subtile influence of an intellect like Emerson's."
5.
Sly; artful; cunning; crafty; subtle; as, a subtile person; a subtile adversary; a subtile scheme. (In this sense now commonly written subtle)
Synonyms: Subtile, Acute. In acute the image is that of a needle's point; in subtile that of a thread spun out to fineness. The acute intellect pierces to its aim; the subtile (or subtle) intellect winds its way through obstacles.


Subtle  adj.  (compar. subtler; superl. subtlest)  
1.
Sly in design; artful; cunning; insinuating; subtile; applied to persons; as, a subtle foe. "A subtle traitor."
2.
Cunningly devised; crafty; treacherous; as, a subtle stratagem.
3.
Characterized by refinement and niceness in drawing distinctions; nicely discriminating; said of persons; as, a subtle logician; refined; tenuous; sinuous; insinuating; hence, penetrative or pervasive; said of the mind; its faculties, or its operations; as, a subtle intellect; a subtle imagination; a subtle process of thought; also, difficult of apprehension; elusive. "Things remote from use, obscure and subtle."
4.
Smooth and deceptive. (Obs.) "Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground (bowling ground)."
Synonyms: Artful; crafty; cunning; shrewd; sly; wily. Subtle is the most comprehensive of these epithets and implies the finest intellectual quality. See Shrewd, and Cunning.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Subtle" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the Greek Fathers of the Church, whose acute and subtle minds anticipated not a few of the objections which we have had to encounter in our days. We cannot elaborate the statement here,[2] but it is to the point to observe that the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity removes ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... evil which was afterwards to transform Conciliation Hall into a market for place hunters. "I apprehend," said he, in a remarkable speech delivered in January, '46, "more danger to Repeal from the subtle influence of a Whig administration, than from the coercive measures of the Tories." And he was right. Day by day, the subtle influence which he dreaded did its blighting work; and the success of those who sought the destruction of the Repeal Association through the machinery ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... sermons and discourses of Shin-gon, the subtle points of an argument are seized and elaborated. These are mystical on the one side, and pantheistic on the other. It is easily seen how Buddha, being in Japanese gods as well as men, and no being without Buddha, the ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... valueless and pedantic, I do not think I ever heard. It must have required immense and complicated knowledge. He was tracing the development of a certain kind of dramatic lyric, and what surprised me was that he supplied the subtle intellectual connection, the missing links, so to speak, of which there is no earthly record. Let me give a single instance. He was accounting for a rather sudden change of thought in a well-known poet, and he ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... known. It was saturated with the sense of ancient, stable, sane tradition. It breathed an atmosphere in which nothing violent or strange or abnormal could ever flourish. She felt that, in contrast with their restless modern Cotswold home, its intense normality must surely have some subtle reassuring effect upon her son. Gazing over those yellow fields in the early morning she felt a more settled happiness than she had ever known ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young


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