Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
The quality of being overly refined in an affected way (often used to describe speech or writing, but also visual art and dress).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: derogatory, uncountable, usually
Examples
- 1902, R. Langton Douglas, A History of Siena, New York: E.P. Dutton, Chapter 18, p. 385, [Italian renaissance painter Neroccio] had the fastidiousness, the preciosity, the love of archaisms, of your true decadent.
- 1916, John Cowper Powys, “Oscar Wilde” in Suspended Judgments, New York: G. Arnold Shaw, p. 416, The style of Wilde is one of the simplest in existence, but its simplicity is the very apex and consummation of the artificial. He uses Biblical language with that self-conscious preciosity—like the movements of a person walking on tiptoe in the presence of the dead—which is so different from the sturdy directness of Bunyan or the restrained rhetoric of the Church of England prayers.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: affectation, fastidiousness
Antonyms: none provided
An instance of preciosity; something that is overly refined in an affected way.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, derogatory, usually
Examples
- 1913, John Hay Beith (as Ian Hay), Happy-Go-Lucky, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Book 3, Chapter 12, p. 151, “Yes, mother mine,” she replied. (Sylvia was rather addicted to little preciosities of this kind.)
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: affectation
Antonyms: none provided
The quality of being precious (of high value or worth).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: preciousness, value, worth
Antonyms: none provided
Something of high value or worth.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable, obsolete
Examples
- 1754, uncredited translator, The History of the Moravians by Heinrich Rimius, London: J. Robinson, Section 14, p. 90, An honest Man that sits in our common Court of Justice, to decide there instead of the Sovereign according to the common Law and our Statutes, is an inestimable Preciosity for us [...]
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: treasure
Antonyms: none provided
the quality of being fastidious or excessively refined
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: preciousness
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: affectedness
From Middle English preciosite, from Middle French preciosité, from Latin pretiōsitās (“great value; high price”).
