What is the Latin word for delicacy?

The usual Latin words for “delicacy” are mollitia, mollitūdō, teneritās; also tenuitās, subtīlitās, ēlegāns. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.

English → Latin

“delicacy” in Latin

mollitiapliability, flexibility, suppleness; softness, tenderness, weakness, irresolution mollitūdōsuppleness, flexibility; softness, susceptibility, weakness teneritāssoftness, tenderness tenuitāsthinness, fineness, delicateness; poverty; frugality subtīlitāsfineness, thinness, slenderness, minuteness; keenness, acuteness; exactness, subtlety ēlegānsfine, elegant, handsome; tasteful; fastidious, critical venustuscharming, friendly, lovely, pleasing, comely, beautiful, elegant; artistic, elegant; affable, elegant, charming difficultāsdifficulty, distress, trouble, hardship difficilisdifficult, hard, troublesome; obstinate, intractable, hard to please or manage verēcundiaknowing one's place, regarded as a virtue; coyness, modesty; shyness, bashfulness; shame, awe

The English word delicacy itself goes back to Latin dēlicātus.

Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864

delicacy

Softness, fineness (PROP. and IMPROP.), mollitia: mollities: mollitudo (softness): teneritas (tenderness). (The words are found in this connection and order.) mollities et teneritas: tenuitas (thinness, fineness; e.g., of limbs, lines, and IMPROP. of style): subtilitas (fineness; e.g., of lines, of the touches of a graving tool, etc., post-Augustan in this sense; classical in the sense of acuteness, refined accuracy of style, etc.): elegantia (refinement and taste in selection): venustas (loveliness): dicacy of feeling, mollitudo humanitatis (Cic.); verecundia (Cic., Quint., Fr., 3, 1, 3): natural delicacy, mollitia naturae (natural susceptibility): naturale tenerum quiddam atque molle. Attic delicacy (of style), ea subtilitas, quam Atticam vocant: from delicacy (of feeling), verecundia, pudore: an absurd or exaggerated delicacy of taste, fastidium delicatum or insolens: delicacy of ear, or of taste (with reference to style), aures teretes et religiosae; aures teretes, intelligensque judicium (Cic.); delicatae aures (Quint. 3, 1, 3; the last implying something of over-fastidiousness): a person of extreme delicacy of taste, homo in omni judicio elegantissimus (Cic.).

Weakness; e.g., of health, imbecillitas or infirmitas valetudinis: valetudo infirma: *infirma corporis constitutio (natural delicacy of constitution; after firma corporis constitutio, Cic.).

A delicacy, cibus lautus or suavissimus (Vid: a DAINTY). Delicacies, cibi exquisitissimi or suavissimi; cibi delicatiores. cupedia, plur., or cupediae (al. cuppediae).

Niceness and tact in action; mostly by difficultas or difficilis referred to the thing: to be a matter of great delicacy, magnam difficultatem habere: of great delicacy, difficilis (Cic.); lubricus or anceps et lubricus (Plin., ☞ Ep., 1, 86). With delicacy, delicate (post-Augustan; e.g., delicatius tractare iracundos, Sen., ; with gentleness, tact, etc.).

Quick answer

What is the Latin word for delicacy?: The usual Latin words for “delicacy” are mollitia, mollitūdō, teneritās; also tenuitās, subtīlitās, ēlegāns. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.

Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.