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nice [nice 词源字典]: nice: [13] Nice is one of the more celebrated examples in English of a word changing its meaning out of all recognition over the centuries – in this case, from ‘stupid’ to ‘pleasant’. Its ultimate source was Latin nescius ‘ignorant’, a compound adjective formed from the negative particle ne- and the base of the verb scīre ‘know’ (source of English science).

This passed into English via Old French nice with minimal change of meaning, but from then on a slow but sure semantic transformation took place, from ‘foolish’ via ‘shy’, ‘fastidious’, and ‘refined’ to on the one hand ‘minutely accurate or discriminating’ (as in a ‘nice distinction’) and on the other ‘pleasant, agreeable’ (first recorded in the second half of the 18th century).
=> science[nice etymology, nice origin, 英语词源]
finely (adv.): early 14c., "perfectly, completely," from fine (adj.) + -ly (1). Meaning "delicately, minutely" is from 1540s; that of "excellently" is from 1680s.
finished (adj.): c. 1300, "consummate, perfect in form or quality," past participle adjective from finish (v.). From mid-14c. as "beautiful, attractive;" 1540s as "refined, choice, elegant;" 1560s as "minutely precise or exact." Meaning "thin in consistency" is from c. 1400. From 1580s as "brought to a conclusion." Of made things, "completed," 1833.
minute (adj.): early 15c., "chopped small," from Latin minutus "little, small, minute," past participle of minuere "to lessen, diminish" (see minus). Meaning "very small in size or degree" is attested from 1620s. Related: Minutely; minuteness.
scan (v.): late 14c., "mark off verse in metric feet," from Late Latin scandere "to scan verse," originally, in classical Latin, "to climb, rise, mount" (the connecting notion is of the rising and falling rhythm of poetry), from PIE *skand- "to spring, leap, climb" (cognates: Sanskrit skandati "hastens, leaps, jumps;" Greek skandalon "stumbling block;" Middle Irish sescaind "he sprang, jumped," sceinm "a bound, jump").

Missing -d in English is probably from confusion with suffix -ed (see lawn (n.1)). Sense of "look at closely, examine minutely (as one does when counting metrical feet in poetry)" first recorded 1540s. The (opposite) sense of "look over quickly, skim" is first attested 1926. Related: Scanned; scanning.