as in Victorian
given to or marked by very conservative standards regarding personal behavior or morals
the novel's wildly off base portrayal of 18th-century aristocrats as nice-nelly exemplars of decorum
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in puritan
a person who is greatly concerned with seemly behavior and morality especially regarding sexual matters
some nice nelly bowdlerized this collection of wartime ditties that were lustily sung by the men around the campfire
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for nice-nelly
Adjective
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The story revolves around Lila, a 42-year-old writer who lives in a crumbling Victorian house in London with her teenage daughter Celie, her younger daughter Violet, and her stepfather Bill, who moved in after the recent death of Lila’s mother, Francesca.—
Laurie Hertzel,
Boston Herald,
21 Feb. 2025 -
Ling, who for decades worked as a fashion illustrator for the big fashion and beauty houses, has turned from figurative, commercial work to abstract painting and sculpture, with her latest work on show in a converted Victorian stable block at Lyndsey Ingram in Mayfair.—
Samantha Conti,
WWD,
20 Feb. 2025
Noun
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Centuries after being burned at the stake, a witch named Jennifer (Veronica Lake) magically reappears and tries to torment the descendant of the puritan who led the charge against her — only to fall in love with him.—
Clark Collis,
EW.com,
18 Oct. 2024
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Naysayers and scene puritans are too late to tear down Turnstile; the Baltimore band heard it all before its third album even dropped anyway.—
Pitchfork,
Pitchfork,
1 Oct. 2024
Adjective
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Raising the stakes were the injunctions of the Hays Code, whose puritanical rules demanded that studio filmmakers in Hollywood shy away from depictions of interracial romance.—
Mayukh Sen,
The Atlantic,
1 Mar. 2025
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With their charismatic leadership, organizational skills, puritanical ideology, and internal solidarity, HTS and other militant groups were the unintended beneficiaries.—
Fawaz A. Gerges,
Foreign Affairs,
27 Jan. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Nice-nelly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/nice-nelly. Accessed 10 Mar. 2025.
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