Nets

How to spell nets

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nets

What does nets mean?

1. nounMore than one length of knotted or woven mesh used to catch, hold, or separate things.
2. verbCatches in a net, or earns as a final amount after deductions (third-person singular).

Nets in a sentence

• noun

  The fishermen hauled their nets back onto the deck at dawn.

• verb

  After all expenses, the sale nets her a tidy profit.

• noun

  The club bought new tennis nets before the summer tournament.

• verb

  The new contract nets the firm a steady monthly income.

Where does nets come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural and third-person form of 'net', one of the oldest words in English. It descends from the Old English 'net', a word shared across the Germanic family, with close relatives in Old Frisian 'nette', Old Saxon 'net', Dutch 'net', and German 'Netz'. The original sense was a length of mesh worked from knotted cord, used for catching fish, birds, or game, and that practical meaning has barely changed in over a thousand years. From the concrete object came the verb 'to net', meaning to catch something in a net, and from there the figurative financial sense of catching or clearing a final amount after deductions. Because the spelling is short, phonetic, and unchanged from its earliest recorded form, 'nets' holds no real trap; the simple addition of -s makes both the plural and the verb form.

How the word is built

• net (mesh, snare)
• -s (plural noun / third-person singular verb)