different between wonderful vs nicely

English

Alternative forms

• wonderfool (eye dialect), woonderful (eye dialect), wonderfull (archaic), wondreful (obsolete), wondrefull (obsolete), 1drfl (internet slang)

Etymology

From Middle English wonderful, wondirful, from Old English wundorful (“wonderful”), from Proto-West Germanic *wundrafull, equivalent to wonder +? -ful. Cognate Dutch wondervol (“wonderful”), German wundervoll (“wonderful”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?w?n.d?.fl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?w?n.d?.fl?/
• Rhymes: blunderful

Adjective

wonderful (comparative wonderfuller or wonderfuler or more wonderful, superlative wonderfullest or wonderfulest or most wonderful)

1. Tending to excite wonder; surprising, extraordinary.
   • 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial 2007, p. 278:

     He is massively corrupt. It is wonderful how the man's popularity survives.

2. Surprisingly excellent; very good or admirable, extremely impressive.

   They served a wonderful six-course meal.

Synonyms

• (excellent, extremely impressive): great, amazing, astonishing, incredible, marvelous, fantastic, frabjous, mint
• See also Thesaurus:wonderful
• See also Thesaurus:excellent

Antonyms

• (excellent, extremely impressive): terrible, horrible

Translations

Adverb

wonderful (not comparable)

1. (dialect) Exceedingly, to a great extent.

Related terms

• women are wonderful effect
• wonder
• wonderfully
• wonderland
• wonderment
• wondrous

Anagrams

• underflow, wondreful

English

Etymology

From nice +? -ly.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?n??sli/

Adverb

nicely (comparative nicelier or more nicely, superlative niceliest or most nicely)

1. (obsolete) Fastidiously; carefully. [16th-18th c.]
   • 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 [...].

2. Precisely; with fine discernment or judgement. [from 17th c.]
   • 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’.

3. Pleasantly; satisfactorily. [from 18th c.]

Translations

Anagrams

• lycine