- nice
- nice 1 Nice, dainty, fastidious, finicky, finicking, finical, particular, fussy, squeamish, persnickety, pernickety can all mean exacting or displaying exacting standards (as in selection, judgment, or workmanship).Nice (see also CORRECT, DECOROUS) implies fineness of discrimination and power to distinguish the very good from the merely good; the term may connote more of intellectual quality than the other words{
an appetite for knowledge too eager to be nice— Johnson
}{he had a nice taste in literature and had edited Crashaw and Vaughan with conspicuous taste and much perception— Mackenzie
}Nice is also applicable to questions or problems which require such powers of discrimination and subtlety or delicacy in handling if the solution is to be found{a nice experiment
}{the situation raises a nice question
}{it is a nice point in ethics whether it is dishonest to rob one's own money-box— Lynd
}Dainty (see also CHOICE) usually implies a tendency to select carefully what does, or to reject with more or less disdain what does not, satisfy one's extremely delicate taste or sensibility; it usually connotës chariness or a tendency to pick and choose, especially in eating{I have been silent—the hungry cannot be dainty—but it is useless to tell a pampered man this— M. W. Shelley
}{no shape but his can please your dainty eye—Shak.
}{it's all right to be dainty about money when you've lots of it as you have— Behrman
}Fastidious implies a strong aversion to something that does not satisfy one's sense of what is right, proper, or in good taste; it may suggest the possession of ethical, artistic, social, or other standards that are so high that they impose a strain upon those who would meet them{it is ... an advantage for an author to have two or three fastidious readers whom he can imagine sniffing at his pages— L. P. Smith
}{he isn't always easy to work for, being fastidious in his standards and uncompromising in his demands— Wechsberg
}or that cause suffering to the possessor when they are not satisfied{the disorder was almost more than his fastidious taste could bear— Cather
}or that foster extreme care in selection from what is offered or available{why such a desperate orgy of literature? I thought you were of a more fastidious habit—not like Stanley, who insists on reading everything— Rose Macaulay
}{he liked people, was . . . not too fastidious to get along with barkeepers and party toughs and sufficiently cultivated to get along with gentlemen— Commager
}Finicky and finicking as well as the less common finical imply an affected or overnice fastidiousness{his reserve, his delicacy, his distaste for many of the persons and things surrounding him . . . have produced an impression of Gray as being a man falsely fastidious, finical, effeminate— Arnold
}{his voice is too soft, his manners too precise. He is genial, yet he is finicky— Mailer
}{,finicking fishermen demand almost as many rods as there are varieties of fish— Monsanto Mag.
}Particular implies an insistence that all details or circumstances must be exactly as one wishes them or that one's special or peculiar standards must be met. In contrast with fastidious, particular need not imply what others would call a high standard; the term usually suggests standards which the individual regards as high or exacting{she is particular about the way steak should be broiled
}{every year it used to get a nice coat of paint—Papa was very particular about the paint— Hellman
}{when it came to sharing his walks, Henry was rather particular. Alcott served for a stroll, but the real art of walking was beyond him— Brooks
}{as she approached, George Adams, who had a particular mother, rose, and Niel followed his example— Cather
}Fussy is applicable not only to fastidious or particular persons and to acts that manifest a disposition to be querulous or fidgety{she was not one of the trivially fussy domesticated women— Ellis
}{men who are finicky and a bundle of nerves. Fussy about their food, too— Christie
}{in this matter Augustus moved slowly and tactfully. He was no lawyer, and he had not the fussy interest of Claudius in the work of the courts— Buchan
}{indenting each paragraph half the width of a page, in a fussy, old-maidish sort of way— Robert Lewis
}but also to things that are especially difficult or complicated{he looked like a natural for the fussy bookkeeping routine of an orderly room— Birney
}{a fussy piece of work
}Squeamish implies a tendency to be easily nauseated by the sight, taste, smell, or hearing of something disagreeable{the starved stomach is not squeamish— Hudson
}In its extended use it implies a disgust for or an aversion to anything that does not satisfy one's standards of what is decent, delicate, or nice; it therefore sometimes connotes extreme sensitiveness or prudishness or scrupulousness{as to the nudities . . . they might well have startled a not very squeamish eye— Hawthorne
}{our nerves ... are unduly delicate, and our tastes too squeamish— Stephen
}{he came of vigorous stock, prone to consult its own will and speak its opinions with no squeamish concern for a neighbor's views— Parrington
}{since the daughter may fascinate the duke, and he would feel squeamish about incest, the relationship must be kept secret— Times Lit. Sup.
}Persnickety and pernickety convey the user's reaction of annoyance, exasperation, or disgust toward persons who are unduly fussy or finical, or tasks or problems that are so delicate or complicated as to impose severe strain on one's patience and good temper{approached native food and drink pretty much like a persnickety peacetime tourist— Pyle
}{the grammarian, the purist, the pernickety stickler for trifles— Matthews
}{new mechanical devices . . . may be all right for those pernickety fellows, the exact scientists or the social scientists, but the humanities get along well enough without them— H. M. Jones
}Analogous words: *wise, judicious, sage, sapient: punctilious, meticulous, scrupulous, *careful: discriminating, discerning, penetrating (see corresponding nouns at DISCERNMENT)Contrasted words: *coarse, gross, vulgar: crude, callow, green, uncouth, raw (see RUDE): *negligent, lax, remiss, neglectful, slack2 precise, exact, accurate, *correct, right3 proper, seemly, *decorous, decentAnalogous words: fitting, *fit, appropriate, suitable, meet
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
