Other forms: nuances
A nuance is a shade of meaning so fine most people miss it. A subtle nuance, lose the nuance, nuances of tone.
It names the small difference that changes everything — in translation, in negotiation and in argument, where accusing somebody of missing the nuance is a standard move. The word comes from the French for a shade of colour, from a word for cloud, so a nuance is literally a gradation like clouded light.
1nounnuanceA shade of meaning so fine most people miss it.
“Much of the nuance of her speech was lost in the rough translation.”
nuance is a fine distinction.
Also accepted in games: subtlety
French nuance means a shade of colour, from nue, a cloud, from Latin nubes. The image is of light graded by cloud.
Latin
nūbēs
French
nuance<t:nuance, shade, hue>
English, today
nuance
French nuance. Omitting several steps, from Latin nūbēs. Compare typologically sfumatura (< fūmus).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Big Ideas