nuanced (adj.)

"having or showing delicate gradations in tone, etc.," 1896, past-participle adjective from the verb nuance (q.v.).

The new co-operative history of English literature which the University of Cambridge is now publishing prints "genre" without italics. And it even permits one contributor—and a contributor who is discussing Shakespeare!—to say that something is delicately "nuanced." Is there now an English verb "to nuance"? It is terrible to think of the bad language the scholars of the venerable English university might have used if "nuanced" had been first discovered in the text of an American author. [Scribner's Magazine," January 1911]