preciosity
Americannoun
-
preciosities
plural
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
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
“Farewell, My Queen” has none of the mustiness or preciosity that can turn costume dramas into waxworks.
From New York Times ● Jul. 12, 2012
It was the time not only of preciosity, but of the Fronde, with its turbulent adventures and fantastic chivalry.
From A History of French Literature Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. by Edmund Gosse
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
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 Arnold Bennett
Gotzkowsky's House was like a general storeroom for everybody's preciosities; his time, means, self were the refuge of all the needy.
From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 20 by Thomas Carlyle
She also published Lycidus, a Voyage from the Island of Love, returning to the Abbé Tallemant’s dainty preciosities.
From The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume I by Montague Summers
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.
