preciosity

from WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
preciosity
    n 1: the quality of being fastidious or excessively refined
         [syn: {preciosity}, {preciousness}]
from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Preciosity \Pre`ci*os"i*ty\, n.
   Preciousness; something precious. [Obs.] --Sir T. Browne.
   [1913 Webster]
from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Preciosity \Pre`ci*os"i*ty\, n.; pl. {-ties}. [F.
   pr['e]ciosit['e], OF. also precieuset['e].]
   Fastidious refinement, esp. in language; specif., the
   affected purism and sententiousness characteristic of the
   French pr['e]cieuses of the 17th century.

         He had the fastidiousness, the preciosity, the love of
         archaisms, of your true decadent.        --L. Douglas.
   [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
from Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
36 Moby Thesaurus words for "preciosity":
      Gongorism, affectation, affectedness, artfulness, artifice,
      artificiality, ceremonialism, elegance, euphemism, euphuism,
      exquisiteness, formalism, formality, goody-goodness,
      goody-goodyism, hyperelegance, legalism, manneredness, mannerism,
      overelaboration, overelegance, overniceness, overpreciseness,
      overrefinement, pedantism, pedantry, preciousness, preciseness,
      precisianism, pretentiousness, punctilio, punctiliousness, purism,
      ritualism, scrupulousness, unnaturalness
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