Near

How to spell near

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce near

What does near mean?

1. adjectiveAt or to a short distance away in space or time; close.

Near in a sentence

• The hotel is near the train station, so we walked there easily.

• The deadline is drawing near, and the report is still unfinished.

Where does near come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Near comes from the Old English neah, meaning 'nigh' or 'close', but its modern form was reshaped by the Old Norse comparative naer, literally 'nearer'. The Vikings who settled in England brought this comparative, and over time English speakers came to treat it as a plain positive adjective and adverb rather than a comparative. That is why we now say 'near' for simple closeness and 'nearer' for the comparison, even though 'near' itself was originally already a comparative. The related word 'next' is the superlative branch of the same family, and 'nigh' is the older positive form that has now mostly faded from everyday use. The spelling is straightforward, with the 'ea' digraph giving the long vowel sound much as it does in 'hear' and 'fear'.

How the word is built

• near (from Old Norse comparative form nær, 'closer')