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nuance

noun/ˈnjuːɑːns/

B2CEFR level
35/100Rarity: fairly common
NeutralRegister

A subtle shade of meaning or feeling.

The translation lost every nuance of the original.

Similar: subtlety, shade

Origin: French nuance ‘shade of colour’.

Topic: Language & rhetoric in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: Language & rhetoric