indelicacy
Americannoun
plural
indelicacies-
the quality or condition of being indelicate.
-
something indelicate, as language or behavior.
Etymology
Origin of indelicacy
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.
I was listening to them talk of quality and seasonability when the young perfumer, with all the indelicacy of a greenhorn, announced, “I have some oudh.”
From New York Times • May 10, 2021
Almost every interviewer he has faced has tried to lure him into some sort of indelicacy.
From The Guardian • Oct. 20, 2020
It was an accusation against a close U.S. ally that had never been voiced so publicly and with such indelicacy.
From Seattle Times • Aug. 2, 2017
"We are mortified and grieved that he should have been guilty of such great indelicacy and impropriety," said the New York Courier and Enquirer, then the country's most popular paper.
From BBC • Feb. 14, 2012
We have as much distaste for talking about personal death as for thinking about it; it is an indelicacy, like talking in mixed company about venereal disease or abortion in the old days.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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.
