Other forms: niceties
A nicety is a fine point of detail or of manners. Observe the niceties, a legal nicety, without the niceties.
It is usually plural and usually about being skipped — dispense with the niceties means get to the point. It keeps the older sense of nice, which meant precise before it meant pleasant, and further back meant foolish.
1nounnicetyA fine point of detail or of manners.
“He hates the niceties of formal dinners, like knowing which fork to use first.”
nicety is a fine point.
Old French nicete comes from nice, which meant simple or foolish, from Latin nescius, ignorant. Nice has travelled a long way.
Old French
niceté — simpleness, foolishness
Middle English
nicetee
English, today
nicety
Built from
From Middle English nicetee, from Old French niceté (“simpleness, foolishness”), from nice (“simple, foolish”); equivalent to nice + -e- + -ty.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA