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Showing results for subtle. Search instead for subtles.
Definitions
Trivia Time
In calling one of his novels The Subtle Knife, what does Philip Pullman convey about the knife?

subtle

[suht-l] / ˈsʌt l /




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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But RSI can detect subtle changes in behavior that may not be so apparent when just watching price movements.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 27, 2026

It can sometimes take subtle forms, making it harder for business owners to detect.

From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2026

From its unmarked front door to its low-lit lounge, the Seattle vinyl bar is a subtle, pensive ballad of a place.

From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2026

By shifting the phase of the unscattered light by 90 degrees, he made subtle cellular features stand out more clearly against their background when the light reached the viewer's eye.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 22, 2026

Then they searched for subtle repetitions that would reveal the pattern of the switches that drove the Japanese machine.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

As particle accelerators became more powerful and detectors grew increasingly sensitive, researchers gained access to subtler physical processes.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 2, 2026

There’s a second, subtler reason, found in “Regime Change,” a new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026

The tension emerges from something subtler: the struggle to define terms.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

It remains to be seen whether “Kitchen Undercover” will rely on prosthetics, fake mustaches or merely the subtler costume of the unrecognized employee.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026

This is a conservative estimate, since the algorithm was able to identify only the most egregious form of cheating—in which teachers systematically changed students’ answers—and not the many subtler ways a teacher might cheat.

From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt

The film won’t win any prizes for the subtlest metaphor of the year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 6, 2025

Throughout the history of American music, blues, jazz and soul singers have used the jazzy quaver for the subtlest nuances of emotion: for tension, playfulness, defiance, flirtatiousness, ache or just blithe ornamentation.

From New York Times ● May 10, 2024

"Blinks are one of the subtlest of human movements, so designing mechanisms that can mimic these movements require advanced technology, such as high-precision motors," Ms Kiilavuori explains.

From BBC ● May 4, 2023

The subtlest of time capsules, “Happy Place” resonates with our shared losses from the past few years.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 23, 2023

Madison possessed the subtlest and most intellectually sophisticated understanding of the choices facing the new American republic of any member of the revolutionary generation.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis


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