What's the difference between intricate and subtle?

Intricate


Definition:

  • (a.) Entangled; involved; perplexed; complicated; difficult to understand, follow, arrange, or adjust; as, intricate machinery, labyrinths, accounts, plots, etc.
  • (v. t.) To entangle; to involve; to make perplexing.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It involves creativity, understanding of art form and the ability to improvise in the highly complex environment of a care setting.” David Cameron has boosted dementia awareness but more needs to be done Read more She warns: “To effect a cultural change in dementia care requires a change of thinking … this approach is complex and intricate, and can change cultural attitudes by regarding the arts as central to everyday life of the care home.” Another participant, Mary*, a former teacher who had been bedridden for a year, read plays with the reminiscence arts practitioner.
  • (2) These channels form an intricate network throughout the submucosa.
  • (3) A large number of samples can be analyzed without specialized equipment or intricate experimental steps.
  • (4) Intricate is the key word, as screwball dialogue plays off layered wordplay, recurring jokes and referential callbacks to build to the sort of laughs that hit you twice: an initial belly laugh followed, a few minutes later, by the crafty laugh of recognition.
  • (5) The program helps easy study of the different parameters on the conducting rate of the permeable ion through the channel which otherwise would demand intricate experimental set-ups.
  • (6) The results appear to offer pharmacological evidence for the recently evolving intricate innervation pattern of the urethra including its distal portion, where the alpha-adrenergic system is believed to be important.
  • (7) Neuroimaging data are particularly complex owing to (a) the high number of potential dependent variables (i.e., regions of interest) coupled with the practical limitations on sample size; (b) the known physical properties of scanners (e.g., resolution) interacting with the intricate and variable structure of the human brain; and (c) mathematical properties introduced into the data by the physiological model for quantification.
  • (8) Bungie says it has a vast and stable infrastructure, which it has intricately tested.
  • (9) Age, height and weight are intricately related to performance in a specific sporting activity.
  • (10) In brief, the results suggest that the categorical usage of relative terms involves a rich and intricate knowledge system and that it takes children considerable time to acquire and organize the relevant pieces of knowledge.
  • (11) Further experimentation is likely to be technically demanding because of indications that intricate hormone-prostaglandin-cytokine networks regulate uterine macrophage activities.
  • (12) Arsenal responded in the only way they know, with Ramsey, Mesut Özil, Jack Wilshere and Oxlade-Chamberlain all involved in intricate passing patterns on the edge of the area, though there was no end product to bother Tim Howard apart from another long shot from Oxlade-Chamberlain that drifted wide.
  • (13) Worldwide literature and ten or so personal cases are reviewed as a basis for distinction or intrication of two aspect of post-hydatid sclerosing cholangitis; that of a localized lesion of diffuse lesions of the biliary tract.
  • (14) It was found that underweight children showed significantly less favourable indices in all of the above categories except stool parasitology suggesting an extremely intricate and complex interaction of a host of ecological variables in the causation of undernutrition.
  • (15) What at first appeared to be a frustrating, difficult-to-control case of diabetes mellitus was later revealed to be an intricate drama involving multiple voices and issues: marital, life stage, family, religious, occupational, regional, economic, and physician family-of-origin.
  • (16) To analyze intricate roentgeno-diagnostic complexes the need for application of frequency-contrast characteristics (FCC) is generally acknowledged at present.
  • (17) The intricate wood carving, the elegant furniture, the panelled walls, the grand entrance hall and the cantilevered stairs are undeniably impressive.
  • (18) "In Trapani, the mafia and the masons are intricately linked," Principato said.
  • (19) Qualitative analyses resulted in the identification of descriptors of fatigue, conditions under which fatigue occurs, an intricate repertoire of strategies used to prevent and manage fatigue, and the consequences of chronic fatigue.
  • (20) It appears, then, that the interrelation between glial cell lines during differentiation is more intricate than previously suspected and is closely dependent, for each line, upon the integrity of axons.

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.