SUBTLETY: Synonyms and Related Words. What is Another Word for SUBTLETY?

Need another word that means the same as “subtlety”? Find 53 synonyms and 30 related words for “subtlety” in this overview.

The synonyms of “Subtlety” are: niceness, nicety, nuance, refinement, shade, delicacy, elusiveness, faintness, astuteness, keenness, acuteness, fineness, sharpness, shrewdness, perceptiveness, perception, discernment, sensitivity, discrimination, penetration, percipience, perspicacity, perspicuity, acuity, sagacity, wisdom, cleverness, intelligence, skill, artfulness, dexterity, brightness, finesse, ingenuity, expertise, adroitness, complexity, intricacy, cunning, guile, craftiness, wiliness, deviousness, precision, preciseness, detail, slightness, minuteness, narrowness, tenuousness, indistinctness, indefiniteness, lack of definition

Subtlety as a Noun

Definitions of "Subtlety" as a noun

According to the Oxford Dictionary of English, “subtlety” as a noun can have the following definitions:

• The quality or state of being subtle.
• The quality of being difficult to detect or analyze.
• A subtle distinction, feature, or argument.
• A subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude.

Synonyms of "Subtlety" as a noun (53 Words)

acuity	A quick and penetrating intelligence. Visual acuity.
acuteness	Very hard native crystalline carbon valued as a gem. He argued with great acuteness.
adroitness	Skillful performance or ability without difficulty. He lacks political adroitness.
artfulness	The quality of being adroit in taking unfair advantage.
astuteness	Intelligence manifested by being astute (as in business dealings.
brightness	The quality of being intelligent and quick-witted. His mother called to him from the brightness of the kitchen.
cleverness	The property of being ingenious. The cleverness of her strategy.
complexity	The state or quality of being intricate or complicated. An issue of great complexity.
craftiness	A steep rugged rock or cliff.
cunning	Skill in achieving one’s ends by deceit. What resources of energy and cunning it took just to survive.
delicacy	Accuracy of perception; sensitiveness. I have to treat this matter with the utmost delicacy.
detail	Extended treatment of particulars. A detail was sent to remove the fallen trees.
deviousness	The quality of being oblique and rambling indirectly.
dexterity	Skill in performing tasks, especially with the hands. Her dexterity with chopsticks.
discernment	The ability to judge well. A man of discernment.
discrimination	The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability. Discrimination between right and wrong.
elusiveness	The quality of being difficult to grasp or pin down. The author s elusiveness may at times be construed as evasiveness.
expertise	Skillfulness by virtue of possessing special knowledge. Technical expertise.
faintness	A feeling of faintness and of being ready to swoon. Faintness of heart and infirmity of purpose.
fineness	The property of being very narrow or thin. The fineness of her features.
finesse	Subtly skillful handling of a situation. Orchestral playing of great finesse.
guile	The use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them. He used all his guile and guts to free himself from the muddle he was in.
indefiniteness	The quality of being vague and poorly defined.
indistinctness	The quality of being indistinct and without sharp outlines.
ingenuity	The quality of being clever, original, and inventive. The ingenuity of Haydn s scoring.
intelligence	A unit responsible for gathering and interpreting information about an enemy. Extraterrestrial intelligences.
intricacy	The quality of being intricate. The intricacy of the procedure.
keenness	A positive feeling of wanting to push ahead with something. I admired the keenness of his mind.
lack of definition	The state of needing something that is absent or unavailable.
minuteness	The property of being very small in size. He examined the essay with the greatest minuteness.
narrowness	A narrow strait connecting two bodies of water. Narrowness of vision and understanding.
niceness	The quality of being nice; pleasantness. Her sheer niceness won her many friends.
nicety	Accuracy or precision. She prided herself on her nicety of pronunciation.
nuance	A subtle difference in or shade of meaning, expression, or sound. Without understanding the finer nuances you can t enjoy the humor.
perception	The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses. He wouldn t have accepted said my mother with unusual perception.
perceptiveness	A feeling of understanding.
percipience	The quality of having sensitive insight or understanding; perceptiveness. Age has not impaired his percipience.
perspicacity	The capacity to assess situations or circumstances shrewdly and to draw sound conclusions. The perspicacity of her remarks.
perspicuity	Clarity as a consequence of being perspicuous.
preciseness	Clarity as a consequence of precision. He handled it with the preciseness of an automaton.
precision	Refinement in a measurement, calculation, or specification, especially as represented by the number of digits given. A precision of six decimal figures.
refinement	Cultured elegance in behaviour or manner. I admired the exquisite refinement of his prose.
sagacity	The quality of being sagacious. A man of great political sagacity.
sensitivity	Sensitivity to emotional feelings of self and others. A galvanometer of extreme sensitivity.
shade	A lampshade. Various shades of blue.
sharpness	A strong odor or taste property. The sharpness of her loss.
shrewdness	The quality of having or showing good powers of judgement. He is a man of some tactical shrewdness.
skill	Ability to produce solutions in some problem domain. The skills of cookery.
slightness	Smallness of stature.
tenuousness	The right to hold property; part of an ancient hierarchical system of holding lands.
wiliness	A hypothetical subatomic particle of large mass that interacts weakly with ordinary matter through gravitation; postulated as a constituent of the dark matter of the universe.
wisdom	An Apocryphal book consisting mainly of a meditation on wisdom although ascribed to Solomon it was probably written in the first century BC. Eastern wisdom.

Usage Examples of "Subtlety" as a noun

• The subtleties of English grammar.
• You had to admire the subtlety of the distinctions he drew.
• The textural subtlety of Degas.

Associations of "Subtlety" (30 Words)

abstruse	Difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge. An abstruse philosophical inquiry.
ambiguous	Having more than one possible meaning. Ambiguous words.
ambiguously	So as to be open to doubt or uncertainty. This letter is worded ambiguously.
ambivalent	Uncertain or unable to decide about what course to follow. Was ambivalent about having children.
blur	Make unclear indistinct or blurred. In front of him the page blurred.
blurred	Indistinct or hazy in outline. Blurred vision.
complexity	A factor involved in a complicated process or situation. He enjoyed the complexity of modern computers.
convoluted	Intricately folded, twisted, or coiled. Convoluted legal language.
esoteric	Confined to and understandable by only an enlightened inner circle. A compilation of esoteric philosophical theories.
faint	(of a sight, smell, or sound) barely perceptible. The fires were fainting there.
hazy	Indistinct or hazy in outline. It was a beautiful day but quite hazy.
illegibility	The quality of writing (print or handwriting) that cannot be deciphered.
imprecision	The quality of lacking precision. All scientific measurements come with some degree of imprecision.
inconspicuous	Not clearly visible or attracting attention. He pushed the string through an inconspicuous hole.
indefinite	Not clearly expressed or defined; vague. Must you be so indefinite.
indeterminate	Not exactly known, established, or defined. An indeterminate stem.
indistinct	Not clear or sharply defined. His speech was slurred and indistinct.
intricacy	The quality of being intricate. The intricacy of the procedure.
intricate	Very complicated or detailed. An intricate network of canals.
noncommittal	Refusing to bind oneself to a particular course of action or view or the like. Her boyfriend was noncommittal about their future together.
nuance	Give nuances to. He was familiar with the nuances of the local dialect.
obscure	Make obscure or unclear. The debate has become obscured by conflicting ideological perspectives.
puzzling	Not clear to the understanding. A puzzling statement.
recondite	Difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge. Some recondite problem in historiography.
subtle	(of a mixture or effect) delicately complex and understated. The subtle fiend dissembled.
trivia	Details, considerations, or pieces of information of little importance or value. We fill our days with meaningless trivia.
uncertain	Not consistent or dependable. She spoke in no uncertain terms.
unclear	Not obvious or definite; ambiguous. The reason for their actions is unclear to this day.
vague	Thinking or communicating in an unfocused or imprecise way. Vague forms of speech have so long passed for mysteries of science.
wispy	Thin and weak. A few wispy memories of childhood.