preciosity

noun

1. (derogatory, uncountable, usually)The quality of being overly refined in an affected way (often used to describe speech or writing, but also visual art and dress).

   “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.”

   “It is […] a section of society where everybody talks and poses, where pedantry masquerades as knowledge, sentimentality as sentiment, and preciosity as delicacy and refinement;”

   “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.”

   “He was dressed very well and carefully, she thought, and wondered whether Arthur’s preciosity in the matter of clothing influenced his staff.”

2. (countable, derogatory, usually)An instance of preciosity; something that is overly refined in an affected way.

   ““O Father Master, is it possible! (exclaimed the Beneficiary ready to roll about the floor with laughing) is it possible that such preciosities are printed! […]””

   “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.)”

   “A book like Tropic of Cancer, published at such a time, must be either a tedious preciosity or something unusual, and I think a majority of the people who have read it would agree that it is not the first.”

3. (obsolete, uncountable)The quality of being precious (of high value or worth).

   “I must be forc’d to say somewhat of Margarites [i.e. pearls] themselves, and I am affraid I shall rather be struck with the deepest amazement and confusion, than be able to expresse their unspeakable worth and preciosity.”

   “[The figurehead] was covered up with tow and sacking and so hidden under pretence of safety that none might discover the secret of its intrinsic preciosity.”

   “He did not love the vulger herd, but he knew that his own vulgarity would be greater if he forbade it ingress, and that it was not by preciosity that he would attain to the intimate spirit of the dell.”

4. (countable, obsolete)Something of high value or worth.

   “That which is rare (we know) is with all Nations precious, and what is precious they love to appropriate and transferr upon themselves as near as they can […]. So if there be any thing more costly then another, they will hang it on their Bodies […], such as their Ear-rings and Jewells. But these Barbarians seem to exceed them in the curiositie of their application of these Preciosities, they fully implanting them into their very Flesh, as if they were part of their natural Body.”

   “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 […]”

   “Their poor bits of preciosities and heirlooms they have with them; made up in succinct bundles, stowed on ticketed baggage-wains: […]”

   “Nüssler did, one day, see this preciosity: a Crucifix, ebony bordered with gold, and the Body all of that metal, on the smallest of altars,—in Walrave's bedroom.”