Etymology of "nice"

[Eric Pepke]

Sylvain challenged me on the etymology of "nice" as originally meaning
feckless and foolish. I don' have an OED handy, but here's what
Webster's has to say:

[ME: foolish < OF < L nescius: ignorant, incapable, equiv. to ne not +
sci- (root of scire to know) + -us adj. suffix]

There are also a couple of obsolete senses which are interesting:

14. Obs. coy, shy, or reluctant, 15. Obs. unimportant, trivial

There's also a usage note:

-Usage. The semantic history of NICE is quite varied, as the
etymology and the obsolete senses attest, and any attempt to insist on
only one of its senses as correct will not be in keepint with the
facts of the way the word is used. If any criticism is valid, it
might be that the word is used too much and has become a cliche' to
express ideas less dully--and often more precisely--set forth by one
or another of the synonyms listed above.

-Eric

[Sylvain Van der Walde]

On 04-Oct-98 20:09:22, Eric Pepke wrote about "Etymology of "nice""

>-Eric

Hello Eric.
I concede that the etymology of the word "nice" is correct, as per your info.
But many words have *greatly* changed their meaning over the years ("nice" is
a case in point), thus their etymology is not helpful for *practical*
purposes. But I thank you for taking the trouble to back up your statement.

Regards.
Sylvain Van der Walde (Mr).
swa...@swalde.u-net.com
(London, England, UK).

[Ollie The Sandcastle]

Didn't Bertrand Russell once write an essay on the subject of 'nice people'?
Uh, ah don't persn'lly have tahm tuh go intuh thuh details, but he kinda
thought they sucked...

(sorry, I'm a Brit and i just love the way Texans sound).

Eric Pepke wrote in message ...

>Sylvain challenged me on the etymology of "nice" as originally meaning
>feckless and foolish. I don' have an OED handy, but here's what

>Webster's has to say:...
>