EXQUISITE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does exquisite mean? 

• EXQUISITE (adjective)
  The adjective EXQUISITE has 4 senses:

1. intense or sharp

2. lavishly elegant and refined

3. delicately beautiful

4. of extreme beauty

  Familiarity information: EXQUISITE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EXQUISITE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Intense or sharp

Synonyms:

exquisite; keen

Context example:

felt exquisite pleasure

Similar:

intense (possessing or displaying a distinctive feature to a heightened degree)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lavishly elegant and refined

Synonyms:

exquisite; recherche

Similar:

elegant (refined and tasteful in appearance or behavior or style)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Delicately beautiful

Synonyms:

dainty; exquisite

Context example:

an exquisite cameo

Similar:

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

Sense 4

Meaning:

Of extreme beauty

Context example:

her exquisite face

Similar:

beautiful (delighting the senses or exciting intellectual or emotional admiration)

Derivation:

exquisiteness (extreme beauty of a delicate sort)

 Context examples 

He was tortured by the exquisite beauty of the world, and wished that Ruth were there to share it with him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

For a moment the gratification was exquisite.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Say what you would, Fanny, it should be that; for I never knew such exquisite happiness in any other.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Though the hunger pangs were no longer so exquisite, he realized that he was weak.

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

His society became gradually her most exquisite enjoyment.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

By combining the strength of this gravitational lens with Hubble’s exquisite resolution and sensitivity, astronomers can see and study Icarus.

(Hubble Uncovers the Farthest Star Ever Seen, NASA)

As you will do it, it will indeed, to use your own words, be an exquisite possession.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)