nice
/naɪ̯s/ adjective, adverb, interjection, noun, verb, proper noun
Forms nicer nicest nice! nices nicing niced nyc noice
- adjective (chiefly informal) Pleasant, satisfactory, complimentary.
- adjective (chiefly informal) Of a person: friendly, attractive. “You weren’t nice to me this morning.”
- adjective Respectable; virtuous. “What is a nice person like you doing in a place like this?”
- adjective (with and, chiefly informal) Shows that the given adjective is desirable, or acts as a mild intensifier; pleasantly, quite. “The soup is nice and hot.”
- adjective (chiefly informal) Giving a favorable review or having a favorable impression. “For Candy Crush Saga, the critics were far nicer than the audience (7.9/10 vs. 3.1/10).”
- adjective (chiefly informal) Showing refinement or delicacy, proper, seemly “a nice way of putting it”
- adjective (obsolete) Silly, ignorant; foolish.
- adjective (now rare) Particular in one's conduct; scrupulous, painstaking; choosy.
- adverb (colloquial) Nicely. “Children, play nice.”
- interjection Used to signify a job well done. “Nice! I couldn't have done better.”
- interjection Used to signify approval. “Is that your new car? Nice!”
- noun niceness.
- verb (transitive, computing, Unix) To run a process with a specified (usually lower) priority.
- proper noun A coastal city, the capital of Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeast France.
- proper noun A surname. (pronounced /ni:s/ or /naɪs/)
- proper noun A census-designated place in Lake County, California, United States.
Synonyms
appetising appetizing delicious moreish scrummy scrumptious tasty charming fine subtle delightful friendly kind lovely pleasant sweet Nicaea decent skillful dainty overnice prissy squeamish courteous gracious
Antonyms
horrible horrid nasty awful disgusting foul nauseating putrid rancid rank sickening distasteful
Etymology
From Middle English nyce, nice, nys, from Old French nice, niche, nisce (“simple, foolish, ignorant”), from Latin nescius (“ignorant, not knowing”); compare nesciō (“to know not, be ignorant of”), from ne (“not”) + sciō (“to know”).
Name of a Unix program used to invoke a script or program with a specified priority, with the implication that running at a lower priority is "nice" (kind, etc.) because it leaves more resources for others.
Borrowed from French Nice, from Latin Nīcaea, from Ancient Greek Νῑ́καια (Nī́kaia), from νῑ́κη (nī́kē, “victory”) + -ῐᾰ (-ĭă, “-ia”, suffix forming place names). It was named for a 4th-century-BCE victory of its colonizing Phocaean Greeks over local Ligurians, probably the Vediantii.
Doublet of Iznik and Nicaea.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Foolish; silly; simple; ignorant; also, weak; effeminate. [Obs.]
- adjective Of trifling moment; nimportant; trivial. [Obs.]
Etymology [OE., foolish, fr. OF. nice ignorant, fool, fr. L. nescius ignorant; ne not + scius knowing, scire to know. perhaps influenced by E. nesh delicate, soft. See No, and Science.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “nice”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details