Interesting Word # 70 - Nice
The principal etymologist for the OED, Dr Philip Durkin, describes the word "nice" as having "one of the most complicated semantic histories in English".
(It's actually come to mean almost the exact opposite of its first usage 700 years ago. Derived from early French, it originally meant "foolish" or "silly". When I told my husband he said, "Oh, that's nice dear.")
(It's actually come to mean almost the exact opposite of its first usage 700 years ago. Derived from early French, it originally meant "foolish" or "silly". When I told my husband he said, "Oh, that's nice dear.")
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