delicate vs soft

delicate

adj
  • Refined; gentle; scrupulous not to trespass or offend; considerate; said of manners, conduct, or feelings. 

  • Unwell, especially because of having drunk too much alcohol. 

  • Pleasing to the senses; refined; adapted to please an elegant or cultivated taste. 

  • Easily damaged or requiring careful handling. 

  • circa 1660, John Evelyn (author), William Bray (editor), The Diary of John Evelyn, volume I of II (1901), entry for the 19th of August in 1641, page 29 

  • Light, or softly tinted; said of a colour. 

  • Of exacting tastes and habits; dainty; fastidious. 

  • Affected by slight causes; showing slight changes. 

  • Of weak health; easily sick; unable to endure hardship. 

  • Characterized by a fine structure or thin lines. 

  • Highly discriminating or perceptive; refinedly critical; sensitive; exquisite. 

  • Intended for use with fragile items. 

  • Slight and shapely; lovely; graceful. 

noun
  • A delicate item of clothing, especially underwear or lingerie. 

  • A moth, Mythimna vitellina 

soft

adj
  • Expressing gentleness or tenderness; mild; conciliatory; courteous; kind. 

  • Of a ferromagnetic material; a material that becomes essentially non-magnetic when an external magnetic field is removed, a material with a low magnetic coercivity. (compare hard) 

  • Requiring little or no effort; easy. 

  • Voiced; sonant; lenis. 

  • Voiceless. 

  • Gentle. 

  • Lacking strength or resolve; not tough, wimpy. 

  • Low in dissolved calcium compounds. 

  • Smooth and flexible; not rough, rugged, or harsh. 

  • Easily giving way under pressure. 

  • Emulated with software; not physically real. 

  • Not likely to cause addiction. 

  • Not containing alcohol. 

  • Weak in character; impressible. 

  • Not harsh or offensive to the sight; not glaring or jagged; pleasing to the eye. 

  • Gentle in action or motion; easy. 

  • Incomplete, or temporary; not a full action. 

  • Effeminate. 

  • Of a market: having more supply than demand; being a buyer's market. 

  • softcore. 

  • Palatalized. 

  • Not bright or intense. 

  • Physically or emotionally weak. 

  • Foolish. 

  • Agreeable to the senses. 

  • Having a slight angle from straight. 

  • Made up of nonparallel rays, tending to wrap around a subject and produce diffuse shadows. 

  • Quiet. 

noun
  • A soft sound or part of a sound. 

  • A soft or foolish person; an idiot. 

How often have the words delicate and soft occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )