dainty

From Old French deintié, from Latin dignitātem. Doublet of dignity.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈdeɪnti/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪnti

dainty (plural dainties)

1. (obsolete) Esteem, honour.
2. A delicacy.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     […] my case was deplorable enough, yet I had great cause for thankfulness that I was not driven to any extremities for food, but had rather plenty, even to dainties.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Cowper

     [A table] furnished plenteously with bread, / And dainties, remnants of the last regale.

3. (Canada, Prairies and northwestern Ontario) A fancy cookie, pastry, or square served at a social event (usually plural).
4. (obsolete) An affectionate term of address.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ben Jonson to this entry?)

dainty (comparative daintier, superlative daintiest)

1. (obsolete) Excellent; valuable, fine.
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 13, in The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     Heliogabalus the most dissolute man of the world, amidst his most riotous sensualities, intended, whensoever occasion should force him to it, to have a daintie death.

2. Elegant; delicately small and pretty.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     Those dainty limbs which nature lent / For gentle usage and soft delicacy.

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, in The Celebrity:

     However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence.

3. Fastidious and fussy, especially when eating.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Francis Bacon

     They were a fine and dainty people.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     And let us not be dainty of leave taking, / But shift away.

• neat
• petite

• “dainty” in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2004.