nice
[nahys]
- pleasing; agreeable; delightful: a nice visit.
- amiably pleasant; kind: They are always nice to strangers.
- characterized by, showing, or requiring great accuracy, precision, skill, tact, care, or delicacy: nice workmanship; a nice shot; a nice handling of a crisis.
- showing or indicating very small differences; minutely accurate, as instruments: a job that requires nice measurements.
- minute, fine, or subtle: a nice distinction.
- having or showing delicate, accurate perception: a nice sense of color.
- refined in manners, language, etc.: Nice people wouldn't do such things.
- virtuous; respectable; decorous: a nice girl.
- suitable or proper: That was not a nice remark.
- carefully neat in dress, habits, etc.
- (especially of food) dainty or delicate.
- having fastidious, finicky, or fussy tastes: They're much too nice in their dining habits to enjoy an outdoor barbecue.
- Obsolete. coy, shy, or reluctant.
- Obsolete. unimportant; trivial.
- Obsolete. wanton.
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- make nice, to behave in a friendly, ingratiating, or conciliatory manner.
- nice and, sufficiently: It's nice and warm in here.
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Origin of nice
1250–1300; Middle English: foolish, stupid < Old French: silly, simple < Latin nescius ignorant, incapable, equivalent to ne- negative prefix + sci- (stem of scīre to know; see science) + -us adj. suffix
Synonyms
See more synonyms for nice on Thesaurus.com2. friendly. 3. delicate, exact, exacting, critical, scrupulous, discriminating, discerning, particular. 7. polite. 10, 12. finical.
Antonyms
1. unpleasant. 2. unkind. 3. careless. 9. improper.
Usage note
The semantic history of nice is quite varied, as the etymology and the obsolete senses attest, and any attempt to insist on only one of its present senses as correct will not be in keeping with the facts of actual usage. If any criticism is valid, it might be that the word is used too often and has become a cliché lacking the qualities of precision and intensity that are embodied in many of its synonyms.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for nicely
Contemporary Examples
This was nicely explicated in an Atlantic article whose title says it all: Your Gut Bacteria Want You To Eat A Cupcake.
But it nicely dramatizes the incentives that all participants in the system will soon face.
Nicely gridded up, and presented on the clean white walls of Peter Freeman gallery in New York, Castle's labels looked fantastic.
He says he shouted at one: “You look like a princess walking so nicely and romantically.”
He took great pride in keeping her well fed, nicely dressed, and even taking her to church.
Historical Examples
Verloc, whose affair the police has managed to smother so nicely, was mediocre.
The Secret AgentJoseph Conrad
Wash it well in warm water, and trim it nicely, taking off all the fat.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesEliza Leslie
Pick them nicely, and wipe them clean, but do not wash them.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesEliza Leslie
Nicely, 'Of course for this once—but in a general way I wouldn't do that.
Echoes of the WarJ. M. Barrie
She's such a good girl, she was learning so nicely at the Communal School!
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
nice
- pleasant or commendablea nice day
- kind or friendlya nice gesture of help
- good or satisfactorythey made a nice job of it
- subtle, delicate, or discriminatinga nice point in the argument
- precise; skilfula nice fit
- rare fastidious; respectablehe was not too nice about his methods
- obsolete
- foolish or ignorant
- delicate
- shy; modest
- wanton
- nice and pleasinglyit's nice and cool
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Word Origin
C13 (originally: foolish): from Old French nice simple, silly, from Latin nescius ignorant, from nescīre to be ignorant; see nescience
Nice
- a city in SE France, on the Mediterranean: a leading resort of the French Riviera; founded by Phocaeans from Marseille in about the 3rd century bc . Pop: 342 738 (1999)
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NICE
- (in Britain) National Institute for Clinical Excellence: a body established in 1999 to provide authoritative guidance on current best practice in medicine and to promote high-quality cost-effective medical treatment in the NHS
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for nicely
nice
adj.
late 13c., "foolish, stupid, senseless," from Old French nice (12c.) "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish," from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware," literally "not-knowing," from ne- "not" (see un-) + stem of scire "to know" (see science). "The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj." [Weekley] -- from "timid" (pre-1300); to "fussy, fastidious" (late 14c.); to "dainty, delicate" (c.1400); to "precise, careful" (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to "agreeable, delightful" (1769); to "kind, thoughtful" (1830).
"In many examples from the 16th and 17th centuries it is difficult to say in what particular sense the writer intended it to be taken." [OED]
By 1926, it was pronounced "too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness." [Fowler]
"I am sure," cried Catherine, "I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should I not call it so?"
"Very true," said Henry, "and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything." [Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey," 1803]
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Nice
[(nees)]
City in southeastern France on the Mediterranean Sea.
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Note
Nice is the most famous resort of the French Riviera.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.