Delicate, delightful, or showing refined taste and elegance in food or manner.
An archaic variant or spelling of 'dainty,' formed from 'daint' with the suffix '-eous' (meaning having the quality of). This suffix '-eous' was more productive in Middle English for creating descriptive adjectives.
English once loved the suffix '-eous' so much that writers created dozens of versions of similar words—'dainteous' vs. 'dainty' shows writers experimenting before standardized spelling locked in 'dainty' as the winner.
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