delicately
Americanadverb
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in a careful way.
They stepped delicately among the brambles and exposed rocks.
Aggressive removal of the tumor must be delicately balanced with the risk of injury to adjacent normal tissue.
-
in a tactful or sensitive way.
Employee issues need to be managed delicately, with empathy and an open perspective.
-
in a faint, subtle, quiet, or barely perceptible way.
Dessert was perfection: perfectly moist and delicately flavored ricotta and rhubarb cakes with a big dollop of creamy vanilla mascarpone.
The eye-catching Himalayan honeysuckle has pendant spikes of deep red bracts with white, delicately scented flowers and red-purple berries.
-
showing or using precision or refinement.
The region is a famous center for embroidery and appliqué work, painted pottery, and delicately carved wooden doors.
Other Word Forms
- hyperdelicately adverb
- nondelicately adverb
- quasi-delicately adverb
- superdelicately adverb
Etymology
Origin of delicately
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In California’s major urban areas, but especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, cranes delicately assembling factory-built modules into apartment blocks has become a more familiar feature of the skyline.
From Los Angeles Times
With the game delicately poised, Ireland wing Rob Baloucoune marked his Six Nations debut with a decisive try before Jack Crowley's penalty moved the home side 10 points clear.
From BBC
The result leaves Group B delicately poised after two games apiece, with Australia two points behind Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, who face the Aussies on Monday.
From BBC
Then he delicately takes the leather box and places it on the coffee table.
From Literature
The paint is splotchy in places and the photographs are pinned delicately to a dark surface, their edges curling, giving the overall installation a textured materiality.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
