NICE
WordNet
adjective
(1) Exhibiting courtesy and politeness
"A nice gesture"
(2) Noting distinctions with nicety
"A discriminating interior designer"
"A nice sense of color"
"A nice point in the argument"
(3) Excessively fastidious and easily disgusted
"Too nice about his food to take to camp cooking"
"So squeamish he would only touch the toilet handle with his elbow"
(4) Pleasant or pleasing or agreeable in nature or appearance
"What a nice fellow you are and we all thought you so nasty"- George Meredith
"Nice manners"
"A nice dress"
"A nice face"
"A nice day"
"Had a nice time at the party"
"The corn and tomatoes are nice today"
(5) Done with delicacy and skill
"A nice bit of craft"
"A job requiring nice measurements with a micrometer"
"A nice shot"
(6) Socially or conventionally correct; refined or virtuous
"From a decent family"
"A nice girl"
noun
(7) A city in southeastern France on the Mediterranean; the leading resort on the French Riviera
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From , , < , , < ; cf. < + .
Original usage: "A nice distinction", meaning a distinction so subtle it would only be made by the ignorant. Similar in meaning to the phrase "a moot point". The illogical association of "nice" with good feelings probably arose from the loss of the original meaning and a false interpretation of the word's usage.
Adjective
- Of a thing or person or event, pleasant, pretty.
- What a nice dress!
- Admirable, enviable.
- A third-term senator holds a nice level of seniority.
- Innocent; gentle; distinguished by perceived class or virtue.
- What is a nice person like you doing in a place like this?
- Showing or requiring great precision or sensitive discernment; subtle.
- a nice distinction
- 1914: Saki, "Laura"
- "It's her own funeral, you know," said Sir Lulworth; "it's a nice point in etiquette how far one ought to show respect to one's own mortal remains."
- Neat; elegantly succinct.
- Fermat believed he had a nice proof of his theorem.
- Bordering on failure or disaster; succeeding by the narrowest of margins.
- "It has been a damned nice thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life" -- The Duke of Wellington shortly after the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.
- With "and", excellent, pleasantly.
- The soup is nice and hot.
Quotations
- 1930, H.M. Walker, The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case
- Here's another nice mess you've gotten us into.
Usage notes
Sometimes used sarcastically to mean the opposite or to connote excess.
Synonyms
- (easy to like: person): charming, delightful, lovely, pleasant, sweet
- (easy to like: thing): charming, delightful, lovely, pleasant
- (having a pleasant taste or aroma): appetising/appetizing, delicious, moreish (informal), scrummy (slang), scrumptious (slang), tasty
- (subtle): fine, subtle
Antonyms
- (easy to like: person): horrible, horrid, nasty
- (easy to like: thing): horrible, horrid, nasty
- (having a pleasant taste or aroma): awful, disgusting, foul, horrible, horrid, nasty, nauseating, putrid, rancid, rank, sickening, distasteful, gross, unsatisfactory
- (subtle):
Related terms
- nicely
- niceness
- nicety
- nice and + adjective
- nice and easy
Interjection
nice!