What's the difference between delicate and soft?

Delicate


Definition:

  • (a.) Addicted to pleasure; luxurious; voluptuous; alluring.
  • (a.) Pleasing to the senses; refinedly agreeable; hence, adapted to please a nice or cultivated taste; nice; fine; elegant; as, a delicate dish; delicate flavor.
  • (a.) Slight and shapely; lovely; graceful; as, "a delicate creature."
  • (a.) Fine or slender; minute; not coarse; -- said of a thread, or the like; as, delicate cotton.
  • (a.) Slight or smooth; light and yielding; -- said of texture; as, delicate lace or silk.
  • (a.) Soft and fair; -- said of the skin or a surface; as, a delicate cheek; a delicate complexion.
  • (a.) Light, or softly tinted; -- said of a color; as, a delicate blue.
  • (a.) Refined; gentle; scrupulous not to trespass or offend; considerate; -- said of manners, conduct, or feelings; as, delicate behavior; delicate attentions; delicate thoughtfulness.
  • (a.) Tender; not able to endure hardship; feeble; frail; effeminate; -- said of constitution, health, etc.; as, a delicate child; delicate health.
  • (a.) Requiring careful handling; not to be rudely or hastily dealt with; nice; critical; as, a delicate subject or question.
  • (a.) Of exacting tastes and habits; dainty; fastidious.
  • (a.) Nicely discriminating or perceptive; refinedly critical; sensitive; exquisite; as, a delicate taste; a delicate ear for music.
  • (a.) Affected by slight causes; showing slight changes; as, a delicate thermometer.
  • (n.) A choice dainty; a delicacy.
  • (n.) A delicate, luxurious, or effeminate person.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Even if it does not always provide the solution to a particularly delicate problem, which is often of vital importance, it provides data which, modifiable and better used, should provide an adequate notion of the anatomical and physiopathological state in aortic stenosis.
  • (2) A layer of thick and dense delicate filament-like substance was attached to the surface of the cell body of Cp in the ultrathin sections with ruthenium red staining, in the case of Cj only a little of such a substance could be noted.
  • (3) For a while North Korea refused to play, but after delicate negotiations the players were persuaded back on to the pitch and the correct flag was displayed alongside the team photos.
  • (4) As one example, certain aspects of Gawain's situation seem oddly redolent of a more contemporary predicament, namely our complex and delicate relationship with the natural world.
  • (5) In sections of cells rich in cytoplasm, the basal bodies are particularly difficult to visualize due to their small size (25 to 45 mmicro) and the lack of properties that would enable one to distinguish them from the ribonucleoprotein structures; in addition, their boundary appears to be delicate.
  • (6) "These are delicate times and we take a positive role," Yi Gang, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, told the Guardian today.
  • (7) Even extraembryonic membranes can form strands of tissue that can entangle the delicate developing foot plate, and calcaneovalgus deformities could conceivably be established.
  • (8) Through this clear indication, it could be said, that pregnancies with delicate prognosis through tocolytic therapy are possibly unnecessarily lengthened and the final result is not better.
  • (9) Oil is coating birds and delicate wetlands along the Louisiana coast, and the political fallout from the spill has reached Washington, where the head of the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling resigned today.
  • (10) Filo pastry contains very little fat itself but relies on fat being added later in between incredibly fine sheets, allowing them to separate during cooking, and so shatter in the mouth into fine delicate shards.
  • (11) Ultrarapid freezing, followed by delicate freeze-substitution, immobilizes and retains much more ECM than chemical fixatives that include tannic acid (TA).
  • (12) Ultrastructural study confirmed the diagnosis by revealing tumour cells with delicate interdigitating cytoplasmic processes and basement membrane formation resembling pericytes.
  • (13) The cholera toxin subunit B-containing retinal efferents were effectively stained and yielded the presence of axons with delicate boutons on passage and nerve endings.
  • (14) Type I cases were technically more difficult and had a slightly higher surgical morbidity than Type II cases, especially if an oblique bone septum had asymmetrically divided the cord into one larger hemicord and one smaller, hence, very delicate, hemicord.
  • (15) One thing that isn't the same as in 2003: the delicately balanced relations among the many communities, ethnic and religious, in this most diverse region in Iraq have not been broken again.
  • (16) There are many differences between full dentures on BrÃ¥nemark implants and fixed partial dentures built on the same type of implants: due to some more critical anatomical conditions, the choice of number, position and length of the implants is more delicate; the need of an harmonious crown-gingival tissue relationship; higher occlusal forces than in edentalous cases; difficulty in satisfying aesthetic requirements and ease of hygiene.
  • (17) Tissue characteristics of this laser energy should permit the vaporization of the stapes footplate or oval window soft tissue without thermal effect to the vestibule and without passing through the perilymph to damage the delicate structures of the inner ear.
  • (18) David Cameron suggests that the prospect of giving prisoners the vote makes him feel physically ill. For a man with such an apparently delicate constitution, it is surprising that wilfully ignoring a succession of court rulings appears to have so little effect on him."
  • (19) In their hands, the work of constitutional negotiations became a delicate art.
  • (20) The climate of xenophobia and police brutality in Egypt has raised questions for Italian prosecutors as to whether it was appropriate for Cambridge University to allow a young foreign student to go Cairo and undertake field research into such a delicate topic.

Soft


Definition:

  • (superl.) Easily yielding to pressure; easily impressed, molded, or cut; not firm in resisting; impressible; yielding; also, malleable; -- opposed to hard; as, a soft bed; a soft peach; soft earth; soft wood or metal.
  • (superl.) Not rough, rugged, or harsh to the touch; smooth; delicate; fine; as, soft silk; a soft skin.
  • (superl.) Hence, agreeable to feel, taste, or inhale; not irritating to the tissues; as, a soft liniment; soft wines.
  • (superl.) Not harsh or offensive to the sight; not glaring; pleasing to the eye; not exciting by intensity of color or violent contrast; as, soft hues or tints.
  • (superl.) Not harsh or rough in sound; gentle and pleasing to the ear; flowing; as, soft whispers of music.
  • (superl.) Easily yielding; susceptible to influence; flexible; gentle; kind.
  • (superl.) Expressing gentleness, tenderness, or the like; mild; conciliatory; courteous; kind; as, soft eyes.
  • (superl.) Effeminate; not courageous or manly, weak.
  • (superl.) Gentle in action or motion; easy.
  • (superl.) Weak in character; impressible.
  • (superl.) Somewhat weak in intellect.
  • (superl.) Quiet; undisturbed; paceful; as, soft slumbers.
  • (superl.) Having, or consisting of, a gentle curve or curves; not angular or abrupt; as, soft outlines.
  • (superl.) Not tinged with mineral salts; adapted to decompose soap; as, soft water is the best for washing.
  • (superl.) Applied to a palatal, a sibilant, or a dental consonant (as g in gem, c in cent, etc.) as distinguished from a guttural mute (as g in go, c in cone, etc.); -- opposed to hard.
  • (superl.) Belonging to the class of sonant elements as distinguished from the surd, and considered as involving less force in utterance; as, b, d, g, z, v, etc., in contrast with p, t, k, s, f, etc.
  • (n.) A soft or foolish person; an idiot.
  • (adv.) Softly; without roughness or harshness; gently; quietly.
  • (interj.) Be quiet; hold; stop; not so fast.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In conclusion, the efficacy of free tissue transfer in the treatment of osteomyelitis is geared mainly at enabling the surgeon to perform a wide radical debridement of infected and nonviable soft tissue and bone.
  • (2) Bilateral symmetric soft-tissue masses posterior to the glandular tissue with accompanying calcifications should suggest the diagnosis.
  • (3) None of the other soft tissue layers-ameloblasts, stratum intermedium or dental follicle--immunostain for TGF-beta 1.
  • (4) The cotransfected cells do not grow in soft agar, but show enhanced soft agar growth relative to controls in the presence of added aFGF and heparin.
  • (5) It was hypothesized that compensatory restraining influences of surrounding soft tissues prevented a more severe facial malformation from occurring.
  • (6) After the diagnosis of a soft-tissue injury (sprain, strain, or contusion) has been made, treatment must include an initial 24- to 48-hour period of RICE.
  • (7) It is a specific clinical picture with extensive soft tissue gas and swelling of the forearm.
  • (8) Benign and malignant epithelial and soft tissue tumors of the skin were usually negatively stained with MoAb HMSA-2.
  • (9) The patient, a 12 year-old boy, showed a soft white yellowish mycotic excrescence with clear borders which had followed the introduction of a small piece of straw into the cornea.
  • (10) In open fractures especially in those with severe soft tissue damage, fracture stabilisation is best achieved by using external fixators.
  • (11) A distally based posterior tibial artery adipofascial flap with skin graft was used for the reconstruction of soft tissue defects over the Achilles tendon in three cases and over the heel in three cases.
  • (12) The third patient was using an extended-wear soft contact lens for correction of residual myopia.
  • (13) Computed tomography (CT) is the most sensitive radiologic study for detecting these tumors, which usually are small, round, sharply marginated, and of homogeneous soft tissue density.
  • (14) The latter indicated that, despite the smaller size of the digital image, they were adequate for resolving clinically significant soft-tissue densities.
  • (15) We isolated soft agar colonies (a-subclones) and sub-clones from foci (h-subclones) of both hybrids, and, as a control, subclones of cells from random areas without foci of one hybrid (BS181 p-subclones).
  • (16) Three of the tumours represented primary soft tissue lesions, while locally recurrent tumour or pulmonary metastases were studied from the 4 skeletal tumours, all of which had been diagnosed previously as Ewing's sarcomas.
  • (17) The technique is based on a multiple regression analysis of the renal curves and separate heart and soft tissue curves which together represent background activity.
  • (18) A hospital-based case-control study on soft tissue sarcomas (STS) was conducted in 1983-84 in Torino and in Padova (Italy).
  • (19) This phenomenon can have a special significance for defining the vitality in inflammation of bone tissue, in burns and in necrosis of soft tissues a.a. of the Achilles tendon.
  • (20) Thirty patients required a second operation to an area previously addressed reflecting inadequacies in technique, the unpredictability of bone grafts, and soft-tissue scarring.