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
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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
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
Man's daintiest care, & caution cannot spy The subtile point of his coy destiny, Wch way it threats.
From The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume I (of 2) by Richard Crashaw
The subtile philosophy of the Greeks was now brought into contact with the sublime but corrupted theology of the Persians, and the mysticism of India secretly mingled itself with the mass of knowledge.
From Secret Societies of the Middle Ages by Thomas Keightley
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
That cause of motion he makes the Materia Subtilis; and the finer or subtiler that is, the better and fitter he conceives it to be to preserve Motion.
From Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 Giving some Accompt of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World by Henry Oldenburg
The heavens change by a subtiler movement than the precession of the equinoxes.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 23, September, 1859 by Various
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
The Reflexion must have rather been caused by a subtiler Medium, which could recede through the Glasses at the creeping in of the Water.
From Opticks or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light by Sir Isaac Newton
Of the most noysom poyson that euer was mingled with the subtilest druggs that euer were.
From The Palace of Pleasure Volume 3 by William Painter
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
But if you watch it attentively, you will find it ever changing, though with subtilest refinement, ever human, and true to the great laws of emotion.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 44, June, 1861 Creator by Various
It was this mastery of the interior life, this impassioned voicing of its subtilest secrets, that made Rousseau so irresistibly attractive to women.
From The Friendships of Women by William Rounseville Alger
In such spaces he may dream his dreams, tell his stories, and stamp on them for centuries his subtilest and divinest thoughts.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 by Various
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