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Webster 1913 Edition


Nicely

Nice′ly

adv.
In a nice manner.

Webster 1828 Edition


Nicely

NICELY

,
adv.
1.
With delicate perception; as, to be nicely sensible.
2.
Accurately; exactly; with exact order or proportion; as the parts of a machine or building nicely adjusted; a shape nicely proportioned; a dress nicely fitted tot he body; the ingredients of a medicine nicely proportioned and mixed.
3.
In colloquial language, well; cleverly; dextrously; handsomely; in the best manner; as, a feat is nicely done.

Definition 2024


nicely

nicely

English

Adverb

nicely (comparative nicelier or more nicely, superlative niceliest or most nicely)

  1. (obsolete) Fastidiously; carefully. [16th-18th c.]
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.xii:
      He lookt askew with his mistrustfull eyes, / And nicely trode, as thornes lay in his way, / Or that the flore to shrinke he did auyse [...].
  2. Precisely; with fine discernment or judgement. [from 17th c.]
    • 1926, Ford Madox Ford, A Man Could Stand Up—, Penguin 2012 (Parade's End), p. 580:
      An army – especially in peace time – is a very complex and nicely adjusted affair […].
    • 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin 2012, p. 59:
      Henry's carefully calibrated public appearances would present him as the wellspring of honour, justice and power, the unknowable, all-seeing sovereign who, as the Milanese ambassador Soncino nicely observed, appeared in public ‘like one at the top of a tower looking on at what is passing in the plain’.
  3. Pleasantly; satisfactorily. [from 18th c.]

Translations