preciosity
Americannoun
noun
Other Word 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.
Since 2016, after a brief retirement from moviemaking, he has found a new auteurist groove with modest resources, fast shoots, boundless energy and a striking lack of preciosity about the medium.
From New York Times • Feb. 9, 2022
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
Consciously, no one can achieve the act of love on earth as a completed thing of grace, with whatever delirium of delight, with whatever ingenious preciosity, we go through its process.
From Lysistrata by Aristophanes
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.
