subtility

plural subtilities

1. countableobsoleteuncountableCunning, craftiness.

   —L. By thus glorying in their resistance to the vice of Nature's law—if, indeed, anything natural be vicious—they become not only like inhuman and cruel beasts, but even like the devils whose pride and subtility they borrow.

   1894, Margaret, Queen of Navarre, Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol.III. (of V.)

2. countableobsoleteuncountableA cunning scheme; a trick, a con.

   I cannot omit a subtility of one of those quack operators, with which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, but did nothing for them without money.

   1665, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year

   1 more example

   And that such their subtility might not be perceived, they made him a like paire of eares and nose of wax: wherfore you may see that the poore miser for lucre of a little mony sustained losse of his members.

   1566, William Adlington, The Golden Asse

3. countableuncountableExcessive refinement of argument; casuistry.

   1 more example

   But these scruples, if not too intricate, are of too extensive consideration for my present purpose, nor are they such as generally occur in common life; and though casuistical knowledge be useful in proper hands, yet it ought by no means to be carelessly exposed, since most will use it rather to lull than awaken their own consciences; and the threads of reasoning, on which truth is suspended, are frequently drawn to such subtility, that common eyes cannot perceive, and common sensibility cannot feel them. 18.

   1802, John Hamilton Moore, The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant

4. countableuncountableA convoluted or refined argument.

   There is no subtilitie so vaine, but confounds me.

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

5. countableuncountableFineness; subtlety.

   As we rise in the scale of forces towards greater subtility, the forces become more important and efficient.

   1916, Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7