exquisite

From Latin exquīsītus, perfect passive participle of exquīrō (“seek out”).

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• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɪkˈskwɪzɪt/, /ˈɛkskwɪzɪt/

exquisite (comparative more exquisite, superlative most exquisite)

1. Especially fine or pleasing; exceptional.

   They sell good coffee and pastries, but their chocolate is exquisite.

   Sourav Ganguly scored an exquisite century in his debut Test match.

   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter I, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

     Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff.

2. (obsolete) Carefully adjusted; precise; accurate; exact.
3. Recherché; far-fetched; abstruse.
4. Of special beauty or rare excellence.
5. Exceeding; extreme; keen, in a bad or a good sense.

   exquisite pain or pleasure

6. Of delicate perception or close and accurate discrimination; not easy to satisfy; exact; fastidious.

   exquisite judgment, taste, or discernment

   • (Can we date this quote?) Thomas Fuller

     his books of Oriental languages, wherein he was exquisite

• beautiful, delicate, discriminating, perfect

exquisite (plural exquisites)

1. (rare) Fop, dandy. [from early 20th c.]
   • 1925, P. G. Wodehouse, Sam the Sudden, Random House, London:2007, p. 42.

     So striking was his appearance that two exquisites, emerging from the Savoy Hotel and pausing on the pavement to wait for a vacant taxi, eyed him with pained disapproval as he approached, and then, starting, stared in amazement.

     'Good Lord!' said the first exquisite.

exquisite

1. inflected form of exquisit

exquīsīte

1. vocative masculine singular of exquīsītus

• exquisite in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers