subtile
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of subtile
1325–75; Middle English < Latin subtīlis fine (originally of fabric), equivalent to sub- sub- + -tīlis, akin to tēla cloth on a loom, loom (< *tekslā, derivative of texere to weave; see text)
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.
See Examples For:
Recent scientific discoveries have conferred upon man new powers of investigation, whereby nature has been made to reveal secrets so subtile that they never had been dreamt of before in philosophy.
From Scientific American ● Jan. 13, 2013
At Paris the Universe is seen, compos’d of Vortices of subtile Matter; but nothing like it is seen in London.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
In investigating the mechanical effects of human action on superficial geography, we are treading on safer ground, and dealing with much less subtile phenomena, less intractable elements.
From Man and Nature or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action by George P. Marsh
Any subtile, invisible emanation, effluvium, or exhalation from a substance, as the aroma of flowers, the odor of the blood, a supposed fertilizing emanation from the pollen of flowers, etc.
From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Noah Webster
Ladislaus, after a considerable loss of blood and a somewhat lengthy confinement in bed, looked pale and miserable, but his countenance had acquired a more subtile expression and actually become handsome.
From Whirlpools A Novel of Modern Poland by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Gradually he wove a drama round it; line by line it took shape for a book that was to be subtiler, finer and more sincere than anything that he had ever written.
From The Education of Eric Lane by Stephen McKenna
No, his temperament needed a subtiler atmosphere than this, rarer essence than mere brutal freedom The East, the Old World, was his proper sphere for self-development.
From Margret Howth, a Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis
Is not the Heat of the warm Room convey'd through the Vacuum by the Vibrations of a much subtiler Medium than Air, which after the Air was drawn out remained in the Vacuum?
From Opticks or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light by Sir Isaac Newton
Bread is a binder, and for that abolisht even in their Ale, whose lost room fills an apple, which is more airy and of subtiler nature.
From The Scornful Lady by John Fletcher
We rather think that far subtiler things than the doctrine of association had from of old been familiar to him.
From Life of Robert Burns by Thomas Carlyle
As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtilest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky.
From A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers by Henry David Thoreau
Truth is a point; the subtilest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn away, or blunted.
From Imaginary Conversations and Poems A Selection by Walter Savage Landor
What stuff is the man made of who is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and subtilest truth?
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 72, October, 1863 by Various
This is a truth that takes all the sting out of Lord Bacon's observation that "against Atheists the very savages take part with the very subtilest philosophers."
From Flowers of Freethought (Second Series) by G. W. (George William) Foote
At some far-away period in childhood it got imbedded in my fancy, and in process of time had acquired that subtilest, indefinable fascination which belongs only to imaginative reminiscence.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 by Various
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.
