nice nellyismn.
/ˌnʌɪs ˈnɛlɪɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /ˈnaɪs ˈnɛliˌɪz(ə)m/ North American colloquial.
Excessive prudishness of speech or behaviour; genteelism; an instance of this; a euphemism.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > behaviour > affected behaviour or affectation > [noun] > affected propriety
prudery1708
primness1713
priggery1743
priggism1753
prudishness1760
priggishness1768
missishness1839
missiness1857
prigdom1873
prudity1891
Comstockery1905
prighood1906
nice nellyism1933
prissiness1934
society > leisure > the arts > literature > style of language or writing > figure of speech > figures of meaning > [noun] > euphemism
euphemism1656
genteelism1849
euphemy1857
euphuisma1865
nice nellyism1933
1933 Charleston (W. Virginia) Daily Mail 6 Mar. 6/5 Others will hear..only the twanging note [printed not] of nice-Nelly-ism.
1942 Sun (Baltimore) 17 June 10/7 Mr. Adams accused the editor [of a new book of soldier songs] of Nice Nellieism in dealing with the songs.
1956 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 30 Sept. 2/2 None of the words which Ned Sheldon..found so obnoxious seems to me acutely distasteful, with the exception of ‘funeral parlor’, which carries nice-nellieism to the nth degree.
1960 I. Wallach Absence of Cello (1961) 174 ‘Experience’, as absurd a nice-Nellyism for copulation as she could conceive.
1973 Sat. Night (Toronto) Oct. 15/1 The public had been made comatose by the greyness of Mackenzie King and the nice nellyism of Middle Powermanship.
1990 N.Y. Times 16 Sept. iv. 22 A few years ago the dump officially became the ‘landfill’—a Nice Nellyism, as if its purpose were to improve land, not get rid of trash.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1933- for rent
- for rental
- for requital
- for requital for
- for requital of
- for respect of
- for safeguard of
- for safeguard of one's life
- for safety of
- for sake
- for sake of
- for sake sake
- for sake's sake
- for sale
- for sert of
- for shame
- for shame of
- for shame!
- for shame's sake
- for shift
- for shit
- for shit's sake
- for shits and giggles
- for shits and grins
- for shizzle