But I have to admit that nice is one of those words that is changing its meaning to something, well, nice. Has it completed the change?

Even as a child, I wondered why people urged me never to use nice. I had thought it was a good word.

Nice, according to John Ayto, went from meaning stupid to meaning pleasant.

Nice started life, in the English language, in the 13th century as a term of abuse. It came from the Latin word nescius, meaning ignorant or not knowing. Nescius was “ne” meaning not and “scire” meaning to know.

My big dictionary says the first use of nice in print was in 1290, but obviously it was in use before then.

Soon after, it came to mean over-refined, but not in a complimentary sense.

Shakespeare used nice, but so far as I can tell the word carried the earlier meaning. 

The first English dictionary, that Robert Cawdrey published in 1604, defined nice as being French to mean “slow, laisie”.

Depending on what you read, it meant lazy, dainty, reserved, loose-mannered, strange, effeminate, difficult to please and so many other things.

My big dictionary says: “In many examples from the 16th and 17th centuries it is difficult to say in what particular sense the writer intended it to be taken.”

Furthermore, the Oxford dictionary rates nice as one of the words that have the strongest change in meaning.

My Macquarie dictionary conveys the “modern” meaning of nice as pleasing, or agreeable. This came into fashion somewhere around the second half of the 18th century.

My Collins describes some people being nice as admirable, but the meaning number nine in the Collins book says nice means that you do not like something. It goes on to refer to an exclamation, such as you ran into the back of the driving instructor’s car, resulting in the exclamation “nice one”.

My American Webster says a person who is nice is also kind.

I think nice changed its meaning because some people, people who went with the flow, were considered shy and not willing to create trouble. The change in meaning has been very slow.

Eric Partridge, in Usage and Abusage, says nice is permissible in casual conversation, but “is to be avoided in serious writing”. He goes on and says nicely should, as a general rule, be avoided.

The late Stephen Murray-Smith quotes “she has a nice house” and gives by way of explanation “it’s alright for her, but I have somewhat higher standards”.

Murray-Smith says a nicety is not a pleasantry but a subtle point. A joke about Hitler making a comeback said something like “but this time, no more Mr Nice Guy”.

lauriebarber.com;lbword@midcoast.com.au