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A plain, delicate lace, usually of silk, used for veils, scarfs, dresses, etc.

odest; wanting in the reserve or restraint which decorum and decency require; indecent; indelicate; obscene; lewd; as, immodest persons, behavior, words, pictures, etc. Immodest deeds you hinder to be wrought, But we proscribe the least immodest thought. Dryden.

Unlearned; artless; pretty; delicate. [Obs.] Most sweet jests! most incony vulgar wit! Shak.

The quality of being indelicate; want of delicacy, or of a nice sense of, or regard for, purity, propriety, or refinement in manners, language, etc.; rudeness; coarseness; also, that which is offensive to refined taste or purity of mind. The indelicacy of English comedy. Blair. Your papers would be chargeable with wors…

ellow jasper. Jasper opal, a yellow variety of opal resembling jasper. -- Jasper ware, a delicate kind of earthenware invented by Josiah Wedgwood. It is usually white, but is capable of receiving color.

. In the male the upper parts are glaucous gray, the head and tail black, the under parts delicate rose, and the cheeks white. The bill is large and red. A white variety is also kept as a cage bird.

A cheese cake; a sweetmeat; any delicate food. How Faery Mab the junkets eat. Milton. Victuals varied well in taste, And other junkets. Chapman.

A delicate fiber, produced in the Philippine Islands from an unidentified plant, of which dresses, etc., are made.

A fabric of fine threads of linen, silk, cotton, etc., often ornamented with figures; a delicate tissue of thread, much worn as an ornament of dress. Our English dames are much given to the wearing of costlylaces. Bacon.

everal species of neuropterous insects of the genus Chrysopa and allied genera. They have delicate, lacelike wings and brilliant eyes. Their larvæ are useful in destroying aphids. Called also lace-winged fly, and goldeneyed fly.

Delicate; tender; feeble; effeminate. Too ladylike a long fatigue to bear. Dryden.

The pale, purplish color of lavender flowers, paler and more delicate than lilac. Lavender cotton (Bot.), a low, twiggy, aromatic shrub (Santolina Chamæcyparissus) of the Mediterranean region, formerly used as a vermifuge, etc., and still used to keep moths from wardrobes. Also called ground cypress. -- Lavender water…

Light or graceful; in a light, delicate, and brick style.

Not pressing heavily or hard upon; hence, having an easy graceful manner; delicate; as, a light touch; a light style of execution.

Having white, delicate hands.

One of the two or three delicate membranous scales which are next to the stamens in grasses.

Luna moth (Zoöl.), a very large and beautiful American moth (Actias luna). Its wings are delicate light green, with a stripe of purple along the front edge of the anterior wings, the other margins being edged with pale yellow. Each wing has a lunate spot surrounded by rings of light yellow, blue, and black. The caterp…

arts adapted to a purpose. An indispensable part of the machinery of state. Macaulay. The delicate inflexional machinery of the Aryan languages. I. Taylor (The Alphabet).

A little amorous poem, sometimes called a pastoral poem, containing some tender and delicate, though simple, thought. Whose artful strains have oft delayed The huddling brook to hear his madrigal. Milton.

er bar of steel, magnetized and suspended at its center on a sharp-pointed pivot, or by a delicate fiber, so that it may take freely the direction of the magnetic meridian. It constitutes the essential part of a compass, such as the mariner's and the surveyor's. -- Magnetic poles, the two points in the opposite polar…