| Definitions | Nice
proper noun
- A city in southeast France on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, capital of the department of Alpes-Maritimes.
- Nice (pronounced /ni:s/ or /naɪs/) is also a family name found in the United Kingdom, U.S.A., and other western countries.
Translations: - Dutch: Nice
- Dutch, Nice
- French: Nice
- German: Nizza
- Italian: Nizza
- Spanish: Niza
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| nice
adjective (nic, er)
- Of a thing or person or event, pleasant, pretty:
- What a dress!
- Admirable, enviable:
- A third-term senator holds a level of seniority.
- Innocent; gentle; distinguished by perceived class or virtue:
- What is a person like you doing in a place like this?
- show, Showing or require, requiring great precision or sensitive discernment; subtle
- a distinction
- neat; elegantly succinct:
- Fermat believed he had a proof of his theorem.
- Bordering on failure or disaster; succeeding by the narrowest of margins:
- "It has been a damned thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life" -- The Duke of Wellington shortly after the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.
- (colloquial) With "and", excellent, pleasing:
- The soup is and hot.
Sometimes used sarcastically to mean the opposite or to connote excess.
Translations: - Dutch: fijn, fijne
- French: bon , bonne
- German: super, schí¶n, wunderbar, toll, geil
- Italian: buono , buona
- Spanish: rico, bueno
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.
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