nimiety

noun

ni·​mi·​e·​ty ni-ˈmī-ə-tē 

plural nimieties

: excess, redundancy

Did you know?

There's no scarcity of English words for too much of a good thing—words like overkill, plethora, superfluity, surfeit, surplus, and preponderance, to name a few. In fact, you might just feel that nimiety itself is a bit superfluous. And it's true—English speakers have never found much need for it, though it has been part of our language for over 450 years. For reasons long forgot, we borrowed it from Late Latin nimietas, a noun taken, in turn, from the Latin adjective nimius, meaning "excessive." If nimiety appeals to you but you'd like it in adjective form look no further than its only English relative: nimious, also from nimius, means "excessive, extravagant," and is even rarer than nimiety.

Synonyms

• excess
• excessiveness
• exorbitance
• immoderacy
• immoderation
• insobriety
• intemperance
• intemperateness

Examples of nimiety in a Sentence

the artist's ingrained nimiety results in cloying pictures of cute kids holding even cuter animals

Word History

Etymology

Late Latin nimietas, from Latin nimius too much, adjective, from nimis, adverb

First Known Use

1542, in the meaning defined above

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