Nice-nellyism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Prudishness or excessive modesty. uncountable, usually
  2. 2
    Alternative form of nice-Nellyism. alt-of, alternative
  3. 3
    A euphemism; an act or expression of prudishness or excessive modesty. countable

    "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."

Synonyms

All synonyms
nice-nelliness

Example

More examples

"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."

Etymology

From nice Nelly + -ism.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.