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Definition of "dainty" []

  • Delicately beautiful or charming; exquisite: "No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year” ( Walt Whitman). (adjective)
  • Delicious or choice. See Synonyms at delicate. (adjective)
  • Of refined taste; discriminating. (adjective)
  • Overly fastidious; squeamish. (adjective)
  • Something delicious; a delicacy. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "dainty" in a sentence
  • "Though he does not succeed in the delineation of the great and grand passions of our nature, he is very successful in the sphere of its humane and tender sentiments; and though open to criticism for the jaunty audacity with which he coins dainty sweetnesses of expression rejected by all dictionaries, and for an occasional pertness in asserting opinions of doubtful truth, he is so lovable a creature that we pardon his literary foibles as we would pardon the personal foibles of a charming companion and friend."
  • "At stately Augusta, where change forever has been taken in dainty sips, this is like the frat boys just showed up with a keg."
  • "I did her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty curls, and just to one side of her neck I put a bunch of most beautiful purple pansies."