• (British, America) IPA: /ˈdeɪnti/

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.

   • [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.

• Russian: деликате́с

dainty (comparative daintier, superlative daintiest)

1. (obsolete) Excellent; valuable, fine.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 13, in John Florio, transl., 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.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance)​, [John Milton], H[enry] Lawes, editor, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: Printed [by Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, OCLC 228715864 ↗; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, OCLC 1113942837 ↗:

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

3. Fastidious and fussy, especially when eating.
   • 1623, Francis Bacon, An Advertisement touching an Holy War

     They were a fine and dainty people.

   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene iii]:

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

• neat
• petite

• French: délicat, mignon
• German: fein, delikat, zart, zierlich, niedlich
• Portuguese: delicada, delicado
• Russian: изя́щный
• Spanish: delicado

• German: anspruchsvoll, mäkelig, geziert, pingelig
• Russian: привере́дливый
• Spanish: mañoso