nifty adj.
1. neat, smart.
Poems (1871) 103: Here comes Rosey’s new turn-out! Smart! You bet your life ’twas that! Nifty! (short for magnificat) [DA]. | ||
Innocents at Home 334: He was always nifty himself, and so you can bet his funeral ain’t going to be no slouch. | ||
Golden Days of ’49 181: Nifty! Pard, just chalk it on your slate that it’s going to be nifty, and high-toned, and run in a bang-up hotel style. | ||
Wolfville 88: He’s a nifty-lookin’ savage. | ||
Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 5: That blue dress was a pretty nifty affair. | ||
Day Book (Chicago) 25 Jan. 12: [picture caption] One of the Real Nifty Spring Hats. | ||
All-Story Weekly 22 May 🌐 Tell Hennesey to rig you out in a nifty business suit. | ‘Mr. Mister’ in||
Truth (Brisbane) 9 May 6/3: [A]n assortment of clothing which makes all the nifty Creighen-street girls wild with envy. | ||
Inimitable Jeeves 23: Roville [...] is a fairly nifty spot. | ||
One-Way Ride 244: In his nifty golf togs he looked as if he might have stepped off amagazine cover. | ||
Man Called Jones (1949) 7: As our American friends say, a pretty nifty joint. | ||
USA Confidential 94: Its rear dining room is the ritziest in town with El Morocco pretensions and inflation prices; its cocktail lounge attracts the niftiest nifties. | ||
Sl. U. | ||
(con. 1960s-70s) Top Fellas 26/1: A fence-post made for a nifty equaliser. |
2. (orig. US) clever, skilful, agile.
Girl Proposition 164: Lutie was just about as Nifty as the Next One. | ||
You Should Worry cap. 1: It seemed to me that a hundred iron men in advance was a nifty little price for two lessons. | ||
Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 32: The son was Ned Navarre, the nifty faro dealer who could do more things with a deck of wrong cards than Herman the Great could do with a plug hat. | ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in||
Professor How Could You! 279: Nifty work, what? | ||
Runyon on Broadway (1954) 696: She is a right nifty little swimmer. | ‘A Job for the Macarone’ in||
Quick Brown Fox 145: ‘The Colonel don’t think much of me; thinks I’m nuts. But he thinks you’re pretty nifty’. | ||
Dear ‘Herm’ 15: He came up with a nifty idea. | ||
Minder [TV script] 49: Do a nifty tyre change, do they? | ‘You Need Hands’||
Homeboy 73: Those nifty new disposable cuffs the cops had started using. | ||
Indep. on Sun. 9 Jan. 26: Executing a pretty nifty throw. | ||
Indep. on Sun. Real Life 23 Jan. 1: A nifty face-lift. |
3. (US) cheeky, insolent, disrespectful of authority.
True Bills 100: This Humble Pie doesn’t seem to agree with me, [...] I shall cut out the Apologetic and try being Nifty. | ‘The Fable of the Two Ways of Going Out After the Pay Envelope’ in||
Life In Sing Sing 251: Nifty. Too familiar. | ||
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | ||
Lowspeak. | ||
(con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 159: Cathcart had a nifty wardrobe – someone had been trying on his threads or this was the real Duke – Kathy’s slob. |
4. attractive, pretty.
N.Y. Times Mag. 30 Apr. 5/2: When Knighthood Was in Flower [...] | flossie piece of work about a bunch of queens. The main fairy is a nifty bunch of skirts. | My View on Books in||
New York Day by Day 22 Mar. [synd. col.] She is a nifty looking show girl. | ||
Ulysses 510: The nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical act, the hit of the century. | ||
Rampant Age 109: Gee, she’s a nifty little bitch. | ||
Don’t Get Me Wrong (1956) 49: As well as bein’ a nifty looker she has got what it takes in brains. | ||
in Hellhole 103: Nifty Neddy was a handsome man, tall and well built. | ||
Dear ‘Herm’ 150: She is a somewhat nifty specimen of her age. | ||
Flesh and Blood (1978) 151: You should look nifty in it, big boy. | ||
Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Hindus do not go about in peek-a-boo bras and nifty knickers! | ‘No Greater Love’||
Campus Sl. Mar. 6: nifty – socially approved, attractive: ‘Wow! That’s a nifty pair of shorts’. | ||
(con. 1962) Enchanters 195: Talent hunt for nifty child actress to play [...] a ‘busty preadolescent’. |
5. amusing.
Snare of the Road 14: This would provide nifty dope on which to base a lecture, sir. | ||
Stormy Weather 7: A nifty yarn to tell the guys. |
6. enjoyable, admirable.
Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 7 Jan. 18/1: All of which makes Billy Rowe think it will be nifty in ’fifty for everyone on either side of the footlights. | ||
World’s Toughest Prison 809: nifty – Desirable; excellent. | ||
(con. 1963) Lords of Discipline 147: Isn’t this a nifty way to spend your second night in college? | ||
It (1987) 136: Some of the nifty new drugs. | ||
Oz ser. 1 ep. 3 [TV script] ‘I’ve been reading a lot about faiths since I got here and yours is pretty nifty’ ‘Catholicism is nifty?’. | ‘God's Chillin’
7. self-satisfied.
Augie March (1996) 46: He strutted at the track [...] nifty and supercilious toward his competitors. |