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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
adj. nic·er, nic·est 1. Pleasing and agreeable in nature: had a nice time; a nice person. 2. Having a pleasant or attractive appearance: a nice dress; a nice face. 3. Exhibiting courtesy and politeness: a nice gesture. 4. Of good character and reputation; respectable. 5. Overdelicate or fastidious; fussy. 6. Showing or requiring great precision or sensitive discernment; subtle: a nice distinction; a nice sense of style. 7. Done with delicacy and skill: a nice bit of craft. 8. Used as an intensive with and: nice and warm. 9. Obsolete a. Wanton; profligate: "For when mine hours / Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives / Of me for jests" (Shakespeare). b. Affectedly modest; coy: "Ere ... / The nice Morn on th' Indian steep, / From her cabin'd loop-hole peep" (John Milton). [Middle English, foolish, from Old French, from Latin nescius, ignorant, from nescīre, to be ignorant; see NESCIENCE.] nicely adv. niceness n. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
American ornithologist best known for her careful observations of bird behavior, described in her book Studies in the Life History of the Song Sparrow (1937). |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
