English

Adjective

1. subtle
   • 1819, Francis Bacon, The Works of Francis Bacon, vol 2, p2

     And sometimes this perception, in some kind of bodies, is far more subtile than the sense; so that the sense is but a dull thing in comparison of it: we see a weather-glass will find the least difference of the weather, in heat, or cold, when men find it not.

Byzantine, Machiavellian, Machiavellic, acute, adulterated, air-built, airy, arch, artful, astute, attenuate, attenuated, cagey, calculating, canny, chimerical, clever, cloud-built, crafty, cunning, cut, cute, dainty, deceitful, deep, deep-laid, delicate, designing, devious, dilute, diluted, diplomatic, dreamlike, ethereal, fanciful, fatuitous, fatuous, feline, fine, flimsy, foxy, gaseous, gossamery, guileful, illusory, imaginary, ingenious, insidious, insubstantial, inventive, knowing, pawky, phantomlike, politic, rare, rarefied, ready, resourceful, scheming, serpentine, shadowy, sharp, shifty, shrewd, slick, slight, slippery, sly, smooth, snaky, sneaky, sophistical, spirituous, stealthy, strategic, subtle, supple, tactical, tenuous, thin, thinned, thinned-out, trickish, tricksy, tricky, uncompact, uncompressed, unreal, unsubstantial, vaporous, vulpine, wary, watered, watered-down, wily, windy