SUBTLE in a Sentence

Learn SUBTLE from example sentences; some of them are from classic books. These examples are selected from a corpus with 300,000 sentences, including classic works and current mainstream media. Some sentences also link to their contexts.

100 example sentences for SUBTLE, such as:

1. Do try to be more subtle, more seductive.
2. His whole attitude had undergone a subtle change.
3. The weasel is a subtle and destructive enemy of the birds.
4. Note the subtle gradation of / in colour in this painting.
5. He didn't understand the subtle shadings of legal language.

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 Meanings and Examples of SUBTLE
Definition Example Sentence Classic Sentence
subtle
 a.  slight; be difficult to detect or grasp by the mind
Classic Sentence: (88 in 6 pages)
1  This was difficult, for Scarlett had not a subtle bone in her body; and Gerald was so much like her he never failed to penetrate her weak subterfuges, even as she penetrated his.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER II
2  The questions were none too subtle but Pitty, in her pleasure at having a member of the family to talk to, did not even notice the bald way the questions were put.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXXIII
3  Do try to be more subtle, more seductive.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXXIV
4  But at the outset she perceived a subtle resistance to her efforts.
House of Mirth By Edith Wharton
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 1: Chapter 12
5  Her brooding look, as of a mind withdrawn yet not averted, seemed to Mr. Rosedale full of a subtle encouragement.
House of Mirth By Edith Wharton
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 1: Chapter 15
6  Scarcely three months had elapsed since he had parted from her on the threshold of the Brys' conservatory; but a subtle change had passed over the quality of her beauty.
House of Mirth By Edith Wharton
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 2: Chapter 1
7  And it was not, after the first moment, the horror of the idea that held her spell-bound, subdued to his will; it was rather its subtle affinity to her own inmost cravings.
House of Mirth By Edith Wharton
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 2: Chapter 7
8  She alternately considered ways of leaving Kennicott, and remembered his virtues, pitied his bewilderment in face of the subtle corroding sicknesses which he could not dose nor cut out.
Main Street By Sinclair Lewis
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXXI
9  This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 28. Ahab.
10  And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's texture.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb.
11  All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 60. The Line.
12  In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.
13  If he did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously did its duty.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter.
14  Her face was captivating by reason of a certain frankness of expression and a contradictory subtle play of features.
The Awakening By Kate Chopin
Context  Highlight   In II
15  Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.
The Awakening By Kate Chopin
Context  Highlight   In VII
Example Sentence:
1  Histories make men wise ; poems witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep ; moral grave ; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
2  I like the subtle friendship that does not hold people together.
3  Her conversation sparkled with her own subtle blend of wit and charm.
4  He didn't understand the subtle shadings of legal language.
5  Note the subtle gradation of / in colour in this painting.
6  The play's message is perhaps too subtle to be understood by young children.
7  She's been dropping subtle hints about what she'd like as a present.
8  But TV images require subtle gradations of light and shade.
9  The pictures are similar, but there are subtle differences between them.
10  His whole attitude had undergone a subtle change.
11  He is being neither coy nor subtle, he is courting his own distorted view of the truth.
12  The weasel is a subtle and destructive enemy of the birds.