Nay

How to spell nay

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nay

What does nay mean?

1. adverbAn old-fashioned or formal word for 'no', used to give a negative answer.
2. adverbUsed to introduce a stronger or more emphatic restatement of what was just said.
3. nounA vote or voter against a proposal, as opposed to an 'aye'.

Nay in a sentence

• adverb

  When asked whether he would surrender, the old captain simply said nay.

• adverb

  The meal was good, nay, it was the finest he had ever eaten.

• noun

  The chair counted each nay before announcing that the motion had failed.

• adverb

  She answered nay to every offer they put to her.

• adverb

  The plan was bold, nay, almost reckless in its ambition.

• noun

  On the final reading the nay vote outnumbered the supporters.

Where does nay come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This little word came into English from Old Norse 'nei', which itself was a squeezing-together of 'ne', meaning 'not', and 'ei', meaning 'ever' or 'aye', so the literal sense was something close to 'not ever'. Scandinavian settlers brought it into the north of England during the Viking age, and by the 1100s and 1200s it had spread as the standard way to answer a negative question. For centuries English actually kept a careful four-way distinction between 'yea' and 'nay' for plain questions and 'yes' and 'no' for questions framed in the negative, a refinement that has since collapsed into modern 'yes' and 'no'. Over time 'nay' developed an extra rhetorical use, introducing a stronger or more emphatic restatement, as in 'good, nay, excellent'. The spelling trap is simply that it sounds exactly like 'neigh', the noise a horse makes, so the two are easily swapped in writing even though they share no history.

How the word is built

• nay (single root; from Old Norse 'nei', a contraction of 'ne' (not)
• 'ei' (ever))

Words that sound like nay

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• nee: Used to introduce the family surname a married woman had at birth, before marriage.