preciosity
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of preciosity
1350–1400; Middle English preciousite < Middle French preciosite < Latin pretiōsitās. See precious, -ity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She flirts with preciosity, particularly in her overbearing use of Keaton.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 25, 2022
“Darkness Odyssey” doesn’t become boring, but it does become a willful exercise in preciosity, in artful effects.
From New York Times ● Dec. 15, 2017
Despite the formidable artistry exerted by its actors on its realization, “Brooklyn” isn’t so much a bad movie as it is a virtual self-parody of a genre—that of the minor, dignified, clean-hands art-house preciosity.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 6, 2015
Author Lee, 34, an Alabaman, has written her first novel with all of the tactile brilliance and none of the preciosity generally supposed to be standard swamp-warfare issue for Southern writers.
From Time ● Feb. 3, 2015
Moreover, the tendency to preciosity, which was kept in check in the Thebais by the requirements of epic, here has full play.
From Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal by Butler, Harold Edgeworth
Rare privilege, truly, when its preciosities are oiled with mellifluous King's English, even though by spurious engineers.
From Time Magazine Archive
From England came the apocalyptic chants of Edith Sitwell, who had journeyed a long way from her early preciosities.
From Time Magazine Archive
Moreover, a wide outlook will help us to avoid exaggerations, preciosities, and fanaticisms.
From Nature Mysticism by Mercer, John Edward
And Helen, too, seemed more in a humour to accept the disappearance of five invaluable trunks, full of preciosities, as a facetious sally on the part of destiny.
From Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) by Bennett, Arnold
On other days, he was lifted to the seventh heaven by an enthusiastic genteel mob, who followed every deft turn of expression with shouts and gestures of delight, and far-fetched preciosities of approbation.
From Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius by Dill, Samuel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
