subtlety

n. quality of being subtle, elusiveness

A subtlety (also sotelty or soteltie) was an entertainment dish used in the Middle Ages. It was a type of entremet used in medieval England. Among the popular ingredients for subtleties were various kinds of fowl, especially peafowl and swans. The birds would often be plucked and skinned and their meat seasoned, and then baked, grilled, or boiled; stuffed with fillings of all kinds; and finally redressed with their own skins. Supported by concealed wooden struts and decorated with their original plumage, the birds would be served in lifelike poses. There were also or hunting scenes and similar tableaux made of sugar.
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Noun
1. a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude; "without understanding the finer nuances you can't enjoy the humor"; "don't argue about shades of meaning"
(synonym) nuance, nicety, shade, refinement
(hypernym) meaning, significance, signification, import
2. the quality of being difficult to detect or analyze; "you had to admire the subtlety of the distinctions he drew"
(synonym) niceness
(hypernym) difficulty, difficultness

(n.)
The quality or state of being subtle, or sly; cunning; craftiness; artfulness.
  

(n.)
Something that is sly, crafty, or delusive.
  

(n.)
Nice discernment with delicacy of mental action; nicety of discrimination.
  

Synonyms and related words:
Italian hand, absoluteness, accuracy, acquired taste, acuteness, airiness, airy nothing, animal cunning, apparent soundness, appreciation, appreciation of differences, appreciation of excellence, appreciativeness, art, artfulness, artifice, artistic judgment, astuteness, attention to detail, attention to fact, bodilessness, cageyness, callidity, canniness, care for truth, casuistry, choiceness, circularity, circumstantiality, civilized taste, civilizedness, cleverness, complexity, complexness, complication, connoisseurship, conscientiousness, convolution, correctness, crabbedness, craft, craftiness, critical niceness, criticality, criticalness, cultivated taste, cultivation, culture, cunning, cunningness, daintiness, deceptiveness, delicacy, delicate distinction, detail, deviousness, differentia, differential, discriminating taste, discriminatingness, discrimination, discriminativeness, disingenuousness, distinction, distortion, elegance, entanglement, equivocalness, equivocation, ethereality, evasive reasoning, exactingness, exactitude, exactness, excellence, exquisiteness, faithfulness, fallaciousness, fallacy, fastidiousness, faultlessness, feel, feeling, fidelity, fine Italian hand, fine palate, fine point, fineness, finesse, finicality, finicalness, finickiness, finickingness, flawlessness, flimsiness, foxiness, fussiness, gamesmanship, good taste, grace, gracefulness, gracility, graciosity, graciousness, guile, guilefulness, hairline, immateriality, impalpability, imponderability, incorporeality, ingeniousness, insidiousness, insincerity, insolidity, insubstantiality, intangibility, intricacy, intricateness, inventiveness, involution, involvement, jesuitism, jesuitry, judiciousness, literalism, literality, literalness, low cunning, making distinctions, margin, mathematical precision, meticulousness, minuteness, misapplication, mistiness, mystification, narrow margin, nice distinction, niceness, niceness of distinction, nicety, nuance, obfuscation, obscurantism, one-upmanship, oversubtlety, palate, particle of difference, particularity, particularness, pawkiness, perfection, perplexity, perversion, philosophism, plausibility, plausibleness, point of difference, polish, preciseness, precisianism, precision, punctiliousness, punctuality, quality, ramification, rareness, rarity, rationalization, readiness, refined discrimination, refined palate, refinement, resourcefulness, right, rightness, rigidity, rigidness, rigor, rigorousness, satanic cunning, scrupulosity, scrupulousness, selectiveness, sense, sensibility, sensitivity, severity, shade of difference, sharpness, shiftiness, shrewdness, slickness, slightness, slipperiness, slyness, sneakiness, sophism, sophistical reasoning, sophistication, sophistry, special pleading, speciosity, specious reasoning, speciousness, stealth, stealthiness, strictness, subtility, subtilty, subtle distinction, subtleness, suppleness, tact, tactfulness, tanglement, taste, tastefulness, technicality, tenuity, tenuousness, textualism, the letter, thinness, treachery, trickiness, unconcreteness, unreality, unsolidity, unsubstantiality, unsubstantialness, vagueness, vicious circle, vicious reasoning, wariness, wide margin, wiles, wiliness, wit