nicely

comparative nicelier · comparative more nicely · superlative niceliest · superlative most nicely

1. obsoleteFastidiously; carefully.First known use 16th–18th c.

   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 [...].

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

2. Precisely; with fine discernment or judgement.First known use 17th c.

   An army – especially in peace time – is a very complex and nicely adjusted affair […].

   1926, Ford Madox Ford, A Man Could Stand Up— (Parade's End), Penguin, published 2012, page 580

   2 more examples

   All told, we had scarce two miles to run; but the navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled to be got in.

   1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

   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’.

   2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 59

3. Pleasantly; satisfactorily.First known use 18th c.

   1986-1987, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure He was a sweet boy, but became the kind of man I can do nicely without.

plural Nicelys

1. A surname.