Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Foolishness or stupidity; a foolish or stupid act.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In Pauline this finesse was partially concealed by a languor and indecision of manner and an occasional assumption of 'niaiserie'; or almost infantine simplicity; but this only threw people the more off their guard, and made her finesse the more sure in its operation.

    Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon Various

  • In Pauline this finesse was partially concealed by a languor and indecision of manner and an occasional assumption of 'niaiserie'; or almost infantine simplicity; but this only threw people the more off their guard, and made her finesse the more sure in its operation.

    Memoirs of Napoleon — Complete Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne 1801

  • 'niaiserie'; or almost infantine simplicity; but this only threw people the more off their guard, and made her finesse the more sure in its operation.

    The Memoirs of Napoleon Bourrienne, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de 1836

  • SIMPLICITÉ, _f. _, qualité de ce qui est simple; niaiserie.

    French Conversation and Composition Harry Vincent Wann

  • The thorough and shameless commercialism of Sex has alas! been reserved for what is called ` ` Christian civilization, '' and with it (perhaps as a necessary consequence) Prostitution and Syphilis have grown into appalling evils, accompanied by a gigantic degradation of social standards, and upgrowth of petty Philistinism and niaiserie.

    Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning 1920

  • To see anything honest in such a man as Paul, whose home was at the centre of the Stoical enlightenment, when he converts an hallucination into a proof of the resurrection of the Saviour, or even to believe his tale that he suffered from this hallucination himself -- this would be a genuine niaiserie in a psychologist.

    The Antichrist 1895

  • Berlioz even went so far as to describe the overture as _une niaiserie incroyable_, and the vocal part sometimes shows the influence of the empty formulas from which Gluck was trying to escape.

    The Opera A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions of all Works in the Modern Repertory. J. A. [Commentator] Fuller-Maitland 1892

  • Lorsqu'on dédie un livre, on prévoit l'heure où l'ami le prend, jette un coup d'oeil et dit: 'Pourquoi m'a-t-il dédié une niaiserie pareille?'

    The Lake 1892

  • The thorough and shameless commercialism of Sex has alas! been reserved for what is called "Christian civilization," and with it (perhaps as a necessary consequence) Prostitution and Syphilis have grown into appalling evils, accompanied by a gigantic degradation of social standards, and upgrowth of petty Philistinism and niaiserie.

    Pagan and Christian creeds: their origin and meaning Edward Carpenter 1886

  • For after all there is an amount of innocence and absent-mindedness in matters of daily human life, which is not only _niaiserie_, but comes very near to moral wrong.

    Robert Elsmere Humphry Ward 1885

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  • The French lend us more than their pastry.
    Their language for blunders and japery
    Is varied as cheese:
    Faux pas and bêtise
    And the typical bumpkin's niaiserie.

    March 11, 2015