What's the difference between gross and subtle?

Gross


Definition:

  • (superl.) Great; large; bulky; fat; of huge size; excessively large.
  • (superl.) Coarse; rough; not fine or delicate.
  • (superl.) Not easily aroused or excited; not sensitive in perception or feeling; dull; witless.
  • (superl.) Expressing, Or originating in, animal or sensual appetites; hence, coarse, vulgar, low, obscene, or impure.
  • (superl.) Thick; dense; not attenuated; as, a gross medium.
  • (superl.) Great; palpable; serious; vagrant; shameful; as, a gross mistake; gross injustice; gross negligence.
  • (superl.) Whole; entire; total; without deduction; as, the gross sum, or gross amount, the gross weight; -- opposed to net.
  • (a.) The main body; the chief part, bulk, or mass.
  • (sing. & pl.) The number of twelve dozen; twelve times twelve; as, a gross of bottles; ten gross of pens.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Gross brain atrophy was slight and equal in both groups.
  • (2) Gross deformity, point tenderness and decrease in supination and pronation movements of the forearm were the best predictors of bony injury.
  • (3) Gross mortgage lending stood at £7.9bn in April compared with £8.7bn in March and a six-month average of £9.9bn.
  • (4) But that gross margin only includes the cost of paying drivers as a cost of revenue, classifying everything else, such as operations, R&D, and sales and marketing, as “operating expenses”.
  • (5) Initial analysis suggests that about one-fifth of gross costs would be directly returned to the public purse via income tax and national insurance payments.
  • (6) The concentration of potassium (K+) and sodium (Na+) was measured in breast cyst fluid (BCF) from 611 cysts greater than 3 ml aspirated in 520 women with gross cystic disease of the breast.
  • (7) They also questioned why George Osborne and the Treasury failed to realise there was a potential issue earlier in the calculation process – pointing to recent upwards revisions of post-1995 gross national income by the UK’s own statistics watchdog.
  • (8) A lost generation of 14 million out-of-work and disengaged young Europeans is costing member states a total of €153bn (£124bn) a year – 1.2% of the EU's gross domestic product – the largest study of the young unemployed has concluded.
  • (9) It's the roughly $2bn in revenue grossed by his blockbuster movies, some of which he had to be talked into making.
  • (10) Ender nails as well as three forms of interlocking nails, Brooker-Wills (B-W), Klenm-Schellman (K-S), and Grosse-Kempf (G-K), were implanted in cadaver femora.
  • (11) The loss of muscarinic and the sparing of benzodiazepine receptors occurs in the temporal cortex of histologically normal brains in the absence of significant atrophy and of gross dementia.
  • (12) Affected individuals were not clinically photosensitive, but their fibroblasts demonstrated gross cytopathic changes, low survival indices and an increased frequency of DNA single strand breaks following exposure to long-wave ultraviolet radiation (UVA).
  • (13) Fields said: "The assertions that Tom Cruise likened making a movie to being at war in Afghanistan is a gross distortion of the record... What Tom said, laughingly, was that sometimes, 'That's what it feels like.'"
  • (14) A tumor measuring 20 x 25 mm was recognized upon gross examination in the upper lobe of the right lung.
  • (15) No gross toxicological effects were noted in the experimental fish, although their weight gain was less than that of the controls.
  • (16) Currently, entitlement to CTC for families with one to three children is fully exhausted when gross household earnings reach about £26,000 and £40,000 a year respectively.
  • (17) There were no differences in the distribution of gross and histological types of cancer in the modes of recurrence.
  • (18) The pigeon's metapatagialis muscle consists of three slips, two twitch and one tonic, and these slips are distinguishable at the gross anatomical level.
  • (19) These findings were confirmed by examination of the experimental cases on the basis of the gross diameter of the warts.
  • (20) Gross examination suggested that TD was present in 80 per cent, 79 per cent and 27 per cent of tibiotarsi from birds on diets 1, 2 and 4, respectively.

Subtle


Definition:

  • (superl.) Sly in design; artful; cunning; insinuating; subtile; -- applied to persons; as, a subtle foe.
  • (superl.) Cunningly devised; crafty; treacherous; as, a subtle stratagem.
  • (superl.) Characterized by refinement and niceness in drawing distinctions; nicely discriminating; -- said of persons; as, a subtle logician; refined; tenuous; sinuous; insinuating; hence, penetrative or pervasive; -- said of the mind; its faculties, or its operations; as, a subtle intellect; a subtle imagination; a subtle process of thought; also, difficult of apprehension; elusive.
  • (superl.) Smooth and deceptive.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) As a group, the three mammalian proteins resemble bovine serum conglutinin and behave as lectins with rather broad sugar specificities directed at certain non-reducing terminal N-acetylglucosamine, mannose, glucose and fucose residues, but with subtle differences in fine specificities.
  • (2) But it will be a subtle difference, because it's already abundantly clear there's no danger of the war being suddenly forgotten, or made to seem irrelevant to our sense of what Europe and the world has to avoid repeating.
  • (3) Communicating sustainability is a subtle attempt at doing good Read more And yet, in environmental terms it is infinitely preferable to prevent waste altogether, rather than recycle it.
  • (4) If, indeed, there is an immunologic basis for pre-eclampsia, it is more subtle than the methodology used in this study is capable of detecting.
  • (5) Subtle differences between Chicago urban and Grand Forks rural climates are reflected in arthritic subjects' degree of pain and their perception of pain-related stress.
  • (6) Critical in this understanding are the subtle changes that occur in the individual patient, reflecting the natural history of the disease or response to its treatment.
  • (7) Subtle cognitive deficits in Inferential Reading Comprehension were detected when Reading Vocabulary was at or better than a twelfth grade level.
  • (8) This histochemical difference corresponded to more subtle differences in Nissl and myelin staining patterns, and suggests further structural subdivisions of potential functional significance.
  • (9) Thus, luciferase transcriptional fusions can detect subtle variations in initial rates of gene expression in a real-time, nondestructive assay.
  • (10) The binding of [3H]PAF to washed human platelets indicated subtle changes between Days 2 and 4, which became more noticeable by Day 6.
  • (11) In this study the temperature dependence of the reactivity of aldolase SH groups is investigated in order to detect subtle changes in the enzyme conformation.
  • (12) The crucial issue of whether subtle behavioral, intellectual, and developmental impairment occurs in young children, as a result of lead-induced CNS damage is discussed in detail.
  • (13) Historically, what made SNL’s campaign coverage so necessary was its ability to highlight the subtle absurdities of the election and exaggerate the ridiculous.
  • (14) It is believed that by looking at such subtle shape differences an understanding of what it means morphologically for a primate to be either more or less arboreal may be achieved.
  • (15) The current magnetic resonance imaging system with computerized image processing is a sensitive and simple method for evaluation of subtle parenchymal changes of the brain.
  • (16) Fundus examination disclosed a subtle cherry red spot bilaterally.
  • (17) Ependymal cells developed luminal fronds that projected into the ventricle and the subpial glia displayed a very subtle gliosis in the form of thin multi-laminated processes.
  • (18) The rapidity of obtaining the results (within one hour), the complete absence of untoward reactions to the radiopharmaceuticals, the much lower frequency of subtle or indeterminate results, the ability to render useful information in the presence of moderate jaundice and the lack of interference from overlying intestinal contents establishes these radionuclide agents as superior to both radiographic oral and intravenous cholangiography in the investigation of the acute abdomen.
  • (19) Moreover, subtle improvements observed in earlier investigations were not confirmed.
  • (20) Various compounds show subtle but significant differences in blood clearance, excretion, and soft-tissue uptake.