[‘ Slender, thin, lean. Also fig.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈɡrasɪl/, ˈɡrasʌɪl, U.S. /ˈɡræsəl/, ˈɡræˌsaɪl
Forms: 15 *gracil*, 16 *gracill*, 16– *gracile*.
Etymology: < (i) Middle French, French /gracil/, gracile slender, thin (1515; apparently unattested in 17th and 18th centuries),
or its etymon (ii) classical Latin /gracilis/ slender, thin, (of literary style) simple, plain, apparently < the same base as cracēns slender (with dissimilation of velars), of uncertain origin, perhaps < the same Indo-European base as Sanskrit /kṛśa/ lean, Old Icelandic /horr/ leanness.
Compare Spanish /grácil/ (second half of the 15th cent.), Portuguese /grácil/ (1548 as †/gracil/).
In sense 2 apparently influenced semantically by association with grace n.
*1.* Slender, thin, lean. Also fig.
1590 W. Clever /Flower of Phisicke/ 39 A gracil and thin diet.
1657 R. Tomlinson tr. J. de Renou /Medicinal Dispensatory/ 465 It’s tail like that of other Serpents, grows more gracile by degrees.
1799 I. D’Israeli /Romances/ 234 Half their impatient bosom peered above their vest, and their naked knee, and their gracile legs, glided with easy grace.
1818 J. Brown /Psyche/ 30 Words daily grow more short and gracile.
1859 T. De Quincey /Cæsars/ (rev. ed.)in /Wks./ X. 47 In person, he was tall, fair, gracile.
1905 /Daily Chron./ 24 Oct. 4/7 All the gracile women and all the lean men should be made plump.
1934 E. Huber /Evol. Facial Musculature/ iv. 104 There were noticed also more ‘gracile types’, with..greater differentiation of the musculature of the mid-face region.
2000 E. D. Whitaker /Measuring Mamma’s Milk/ ix. 285 Gracile women were considered to have a defective anatomy ill-favored for maternity.
*2.* /spec./ Gracefully slender.
1817 /European Mag. & London Rev./ Jan. 43/2 They [/sc./ women] are..formed in ‘the very poetry of nature’ soft, light, gracile, and retiring.
1871 D. G. Rossetti /Love’s Nocturn/ in /Poems/ xi, Where in groves the gracile Spring Trembles.
1888 /Harper’s Mag./ Apr. 733/2 Girls..beautiful with the beauty of ruddy bronze,—gracile as the palmettoes that sway above them.
1929 /Rotarian/ Mar. 56/3 In ‘The Silver Spoon’, Fleur and Michael are again gracile, alluring, utterly foolish.
1992 A. Brookner /Fraud/ (1993) xi. 131 He thought her body beautiful, fine and gracile.
Derivatives
ˈgracileness n. [compare earlier gracility n.]
1727 N. Bailey /Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict./ II., /Gracileness/, slenderness, leanness.
1875 /Brit. & Foreign Medico-chirurg. Rev./ July 70 Consanguinity in breeding animals is found to be advantageous in the development of new qualities, as..gracileness and speed in Race-horses.
2003 /Hesperia/ *72* 212 Skull fragments found at the south side of the grave most likely belong to an adult female, based on the small size and gracileness of the skeletal material.