gracile
Americanadjective
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gracefully slender.
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slender; thin.
adjective
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gracefully thin or slender
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a less common word for graceful
Other Word Forms
- gracileness noun
- gracility noun
Etymology
Origin of gracile
First recorded in 1615–25, gracile is from the Latin word gracilis slender, slight, thin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Judging from its unique adaptations, this was a particularly gracile and innovative predator that possessed clawed digits primed for pouncing onto the backs of larger animals.
From New York Times • Mar. 26, 2020
Early modern humans – more gracile, and perhaps quicker to adapt and take advantage of their environment – then migrated north from Africa to outpace and outlive the first Europeans.
From The Guardian • Feb. 11, 2016
Amphibolurines include long-tailed, superficially iguana-like rainforest and woodland forms, short-snouted, spiny-bodied animals of dry woodlands and deserts, and a large number of slender, highly gracile semi-arboreal and desert-dwelling specialists.
From Scientific American • Jan. 17, 2014
Ozdracians include long-tailed, gracile climbers like the diporiphorans, large predators like the Uberpogona shown here, and innumerable small, desert- and scrubland-dwelling generalists, insectivores and burrowers.
From Scientific American • Apr. 1, 2013
Sidwell was all he could imagine of sweet and dignified; more modest in bearing, more gracile, more— Monday at noon, and he still walked the streets of Exeter.
From Born in Exile by Gissing, George
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
