How to use subtly in a sentence
29 example sentences · adverb
Subtly means with subtleness, in a subtle manner; with cleverness rather than brute force. Example: “We were tempted with the carrot but subtly threatened with the stick.”
Examples of subtly by meaning
adverbWith subtleness, in a subtle manner; with cleverness rather than brute force.
- No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848, archived from the original on 09 Mar 2023
More sentences with subtly
- We were tempted with the carrot but subtly threatened with the stick.From the entry stick
- During this scene, the boy’s face shifts subtly from soft focus into sharp focus.From the entry focus
- The setting sunlight played through the gently waving branches, creating subtly nuanced transitions of color and tone.From the entry nuanced
- The catch was that we were also subtly being conditioned to perform.2025 April 15, Sophie Gilbert, “What Porn Taught a Generation of Women”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN. From the entry postfeminism
- Each species adapitates subtly to its specific environment which influences their physical characteristics and behaviors slightly differently.2025 April 22 (last accessed), Aptive Environmental, Jumping Mice Guide, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2025. From the entry adapitates
- Maybe I’m a sus hetero bro who's been subtly abusive and deserves to be blocked out entirely.2022, Sean Thor Conroe, Fuccboi, Hachette, →ISBN. From the entry sus
- You are not flashing leg oh so subtly, your tear-filled eyes remain unbatted.2017, Isyana Artharini, I Am My Own Home, page 81. From the entry unbatted
- Haircuts threw off a ballplayer's equilibrium, because they subtly altered the weight and aerodynamicity of his head.2011 September 7, Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding: A Novel, Hachette UK, →ISBN. From the entry aerodynamicity
- Lonnie Smith, the Hammond B-3 organ can be subtly atmospheric or growlingly ecstatic.2009 July 3, Nate Chinen, “Jazz Listings”, in New York Times. From the entry growlingly
- While QPOC are subtly excluded from mainstream gay imagery, more overt forms of racism persist as well.2009, Sheila Addison, Deborah Coolhart, “Integrating Socially Segregated Identities: Queer Couples and the Question of Race”, in Mudita…. From the entry QPOC
- Subtly and gradually his moods were stabilized, and he started to have positive outlook on life.2003, Islamic Revival Association, Al Jumuʻah: Volume 15, Issues 7-12. From the entry revert
- As women glide from their twenties to thirties, Shazzer argues, the balance of power subtly shifts.1996, Helen Fielding, “Wednesday, 4 January”, in Bridget Jones’s Diary, London: Penguin Books, published 1999 (2010 printing), →ISBN. From the entry minx
- The smoky spray seemed to trap whatever light there was and to dispense it subtly.1955, William Golding, The Inheritors, Faber and Faber, published 2005, page 40. From the entry dispense
- Many frontwomen deal with an unconscious sense of being subtly undermined while also being the obvious center of a band’s gravity.2025 June 2, Lizzy Goodman, “Shirley Manson, the Unexpected Godmother of Rock”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original…. From the entry frontwoman
- Matthew Dear (Saturday) This experimental microhouse D.J. and producer channels Detroit techno in his reedy, subtly dystopian brushes of beats.2015 June 25, “Pop & Rock Listings for June 26-July 2”, in New York Times. From the entry microhouse
- In effect, the analogy of writing that lies at the core of graphism has subtly colonized the conversation.2014, Colonial Mediascapes, page 297. From the entry graphism
- Earlier in this chapter, I skimmed over image filesize and have subtly touched on it throughout the book so far.1997, Raymond Pirouz, Click Here: Web Communication Design. From the entry filesize
- Hence, the act of initiation as such becomes subtly devalued.1995, Simone Vauthier, “Little Red Riding Hood Rides Again: A Reading of David Arnason’s “Girl and Wolf””, in Theo D’haen, Hans Bertens…. From the entry initiatee
- She began rerecording subtly different versions of her old albums, tagging them “(Taylor’s Version)” and adding unreleased tracks to redirect listenership to them.2023 December 6, Sam Lansky, “Person of Year 2023 : Taylor Swift”, in Time, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2023. From the entry coping mechanism
- Yet this sign of growth and hope is framed by a triangle of spindly wood that subtly evokes torturously stretched arms, as on the Cross.2009 January 16, Roberta Smith, “Amid Intimate Galleries, a Jewel of a Painting Collection”, in New York Times. From the entry torturously
- Injuring or mis-shoeing a horse so subtly that it walks sound in the paddock but is lame in a race is very hard to achieve.2003, Greg Wood, Mystery of blacksmith who lost £100,000. From the entry mis-shoe
- You'd have to proceed very subtly.1997, George Carlin, “FIRST THINGS FIRST”, in Brain Droppings, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 68. From the entry take for granted
- Those ancient cultures have developed many subtly varying strains of food plants; leavy greens that cook quickly, spicy roots, pungent herbs, multipurpose cabbages.1983, Nancy Bubel, The Country Journal Book of Vegetable Gardening, Brattleboro, Vt.: Country Journal Publishing Company, Inc., →ISBN…. From the entry leavy greens
- Morning, with rain in the sky, and the forest subtly brooding, and me feeling no bigger than a pea-bug between the roots of my fir.1923, D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious. From the entry pea bug
- These agents aim to subtly and slowly make key figures amenable to the aims of the CCP in a long-term operation often referred to as elite capture.2025 April 4, Anna Lamche and Sean Coughlan, Secret papers reveal new details about Andrew's ties to Chinese 'spy', BBC News. From the entry elite capture
- Of course, what I'm remembering at this point are my own endless replays, and there's no way of knowing whether they've altered subtly over the years.2015, Janette Hospital, The Last Magician, page 158. From the entry replay
- Included among the images that Rigoberta Menchú uses in order to subtly convey her people's ethnicity is an image of Guatemala as the "land of the quetzal."1997, Ann Marie Stock, Framing Latin American Cinema: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, page 80. From the entry quetzal
- A graduate of the University of Houston's Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, the well-padded Raulston, nicknamed Fat Cook by the rigs' crews, makes these changes subtly and slowly.1986 April 13, Mimi Sheraton, “In the Gulf: a Robust Cuisine”, in Time. From the entry well-padded
Meaning of subtly
- adverb With subtleness, in a subtle manner; with cleverness rather than brute force.
Questions about subtly in a sentence
- How do you use subtly in a sentence?
- Subtly is used as an adverb. For example: “We were tempted with the carrot but subtly threatened with the stick.”
- What is a short sentence with subtly?
- “You'd have to proceed very subtly.”
- What does subtly mean?
- Subtly means with subtleness, in a subtle manner; with cleverness rather than brute force.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: subtly (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use subtly in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/subtly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
