Nice  

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{{Template}} {{Template}}
# Of a [[thing]] or [[person]] or [[event]], [[pleasant]], [[pretty]]: # Of a [[thing]] or [[person]] or [[event]], [[pleasant]], [[pretty]]:
-#: ''What a '''nice''' dress!''; such a [[nice guy]].+#: ''What a '''nice''' dress!''; ''such a [[nice guy]]''.
# [[admirable]], [[enviable]]: # [[admirable]], [[enviable]]:
#: ''A third-term [[senator]] holds a '''nice''' level of [[seniority]].'' #: ''A third-term [[senator]] holds a '''nice''' level of [[seniority]].''

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Featured:

  1. Of a thing or person or event, pleasant, pretty:
    What a nice dress!; such a nice guy.
  2. admirable, enviable:
    A third-term senator holds a nice level of seniority.
  3. Innocent; gentle; distinguished by perceived class or virtue:
    What is a nice person like you doing in a place like this?
  4. Showing or requiring great precision or sensitive discernment; subtle
    a nice distinction
  5. neat; elegantly succinct:
    Fermat believed he had a nice proof of his theorem.
  6. 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.

Etymology

Latin nescius = "not knowing".

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.





Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Nice" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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