Word.ws English Dictionary

nice-nellyism

nice-nellyism is the alternative form of nice-Nellyism.

Noun capitalized: nice-Nellyism

nice-Nellyism (countable and uncountable, plural nice-Nellyisms)

  1. (uncountable, usually) Prudishness or excessive modesty.
  2. (countable) A euphemism; an act or expression of prudishness or excessive modesty.
    • He was a co-founder of the Indianapolis Chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous. ¶ His obituary in the Indianapolis Star said that he himself was not an alcoholic. ¶ This denial was at least partly a nice-Nellyism from the past, I think.1976, Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick, Delacorte Press, Prologue, p. 8

Forms of nice-nellyism

pluralnice-nellyisms
pluralnice-Nellyisms
alternative formnice-nellyism

Origin of nice-nellyism

From nice Nelly + -ism.

Questions about nice-nellyism

What does nice-nellyism mean?
Nice-nellyism means prudishness or excessive modesty.
What is nice-nellyism the alternative form of?
Nice-nellyism is the alternative form of nice-Nellyism.
What part of speech is nice-nellyism?
Nice-nellyism is a noun.
What is the plural of nice-nellyism?
The plural of nice-nellyism is nice-nellyisms.

Words near nice-nellyism in the dictionary

  1. nice-but-dim
  2. nice-like
  3. nice-looking
  4. nice-Nelliness
  5. nice-nelly
  6. nice-nellyism
  7. nice-nellyisms
  8. nice-nice
  9. nice-to-have
  10. nice-to-haves
  11. Nicea

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nice-nellyism (page history and authors); nice-Nellyism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “nice-nellyism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nice-nellyism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.