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DAINTY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: daintier , daintiest
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Something considered choice to eat
Synonyms:
dainty; delicacy; goody; kickshaw; treat
Classified under:
Nouns denoting foods and drinks
Hypernyms ("dainty" is a kind of...):
aliment; alimentation; nourishment; nutriment; nutrition; sustenance; victuals (a source of materials to nourish the body)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "dainty"):
choice morsel; tidbit; titbit (a small tasty bit of food)
savory; savoury (an aromatic or spicy dish served at the end of dinner or as an hors d'oeuvre)
confection; sweet (a food rich in sugar)
ambrosia; nectar ((classical mythology) the food and drink of the gods; mortals who ate it became immortal)
gelatin; jelly (an edible jelly (sweet or pungent) made with gelatin and used as a dessert or salad base or a coating for foods)
bone marrow; marrow (very tender and very nutritious tissue from marrowbones)
Derivation:
dainty (especially pleasing to the taste)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Delicately beautiful
Example:
an exquisite cameo
Synonyms:
dainty; exquisite
Classified under:
Similar:
delicate (exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing; susceptible to injury)
Derivation:
daintiness (the quality of being beautiful and delicate in appearance)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Excessively fastidious and easily disgusted
Example:
so squeamish he would only touch the toilet handle with his elbow
Synonyms:
dainty; nice; overnice; prissy; squeamish
Classified under:
Similar:
fastidious (giving careful attention to detail; hard to please; excessively concerned with cleanliness)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Especially pleasing to the taste
Example:
a dainty dish to set before a kind
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
tasty (pleasing to the sense of taste)
Derivation:
dainty (something considered choice to eat)
Context examples:
I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Even if she couldn’t love me, it was a great deal to me just to see her dainty form about the house, and to hear the sound of her voice.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
By the rood of Waltham! but thy touch is deft and dainty.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Yes, answered the cat, you will enjoy it as much as you would enjoy sticking that dainty tongue of yours out of the window.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
Ah, but I've lived easy in the meantime, never denied myself o' nothing heart desires, and slep' soft and ate dainty all my days but when at sea.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
It was on the afternoon of the day before the fight that this conversation took place between my uncle and myself in the dainty sanctum of his Jermyn-Street house.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Amy's dainty pen-and-ink work entirely eclipsed May's painted vases—that was one thorn.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed him of his unfinished ration.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
It was a lovely trip, the dainty green of the spring below, the virgin white of the winter above; but it was clear to me that never for one instant did Holmes forget the shadow which lay across him.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
