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Nicety vs Nicely - What's the difference?

nicety | nicely |

As a noun nicety

is a small detail or distinction.

As an adverb nicely is

(obsolete) fastidiously; carefully.

nicety

English

Noun

(niceties)
  • A small detail or distinction.
    • We met the new captain while we were taking enemy fire and were unable to observe the niceties of formal introductions.
  • * John Locke
    • the fineness and niceties of words
  • Subtlety or precision of use.
  • :A rocket-propelled grenade doesn't have the nicety of a sniper round, but you must admit its effectiveness.

    • Derived terms

    * to a nicety

    External links

    * * *

    nicely

    English

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (obsolete) Fastidiously; carefully.
  • * 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 [...].
  • Precisely; with fine discernment or judgement.
  • *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’.
  • Pleasantly; satisfactorily.