nice == ignorant?

Language Log 2025-12-26

Wiktionary's etymology:

nyce, nice, nys, from Old French nice, niche, nisce (“simple, foolish, ignorant”), from Latin nescius (“ignorant, not knowing”); compare nesciō (“to know not, be ignorant of”), from ne (“not”) + sciō (“to know”).

From The Taming of the Shrew, Act III, scene i:

Old fashions please me best, I am not so nice
To charge true rules for old inuentions.