DELICATELY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does delicately mean? 

• DELICATELY (adverb)
  The adverb DELICATELY has 1 sense:

1. in a delicate manner

  Familiarity information: DELICATELY used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DELICATELY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In a delicate manner

Synonyms:

delicately; exquisitely; fine; finely

Context example:

her fine drawn body

Pertainym:

delicate (exquisitely fine and subtle and pleasing; susceptible to injury)

 Context examples 

The immune system has a complex, delicately orchestrated balance.

(Autoimmune Disease Super-Regulators Uncovered, NIH)

But he luffed the boat less delicately, spilling the wind shamelessly from the sail so as to prolong the tack to the north shore.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Nothing could destroy its exquisite oval, its well-nigh classic lines, its delicately stencilled brows, its large brown eyes, clear-seeing and calm, gloriously calm.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He remained calm and silent, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and the tip of every finger of his right hand delicately poised against the tip of every finger of his left.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It fascinated him, and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle flesh of his that worked so beautifully and smoothly and delicately.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Yet there are a thousand ways of helping them, if one only knows how to do it so delicately that it does not offend.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I looked at that delicately curved nose, at the marked eyebrows, at the straight mouth, and the strong little chin beneath it.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My! for a poet, delicately attuned and all the rest of it, you can make unlovely noises. My ear-drums are pierced. You outwhistle— Orpheus.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Your time has been properly and delicately spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring about this marriage.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

That delicately bronzed skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair, the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,—all the stigmata of passion were there.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)