Nor

How to spell nor

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nor

What does nor mean?

1. conjunctionA linking word used after a negative to introduce a further excluded alternative, often paired with neither.

Nor in a sentence

• She had neither the time nor the patience to redo the report.

• The office could not reach the client by phone, nor did the emails get a reply.

Where does nor come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word nor comes from Middle English, where it arose as a shortened form of nother, which itself combined the negative no with other. In Old English the fuller forms were nahwæther and nawther, meaning roughly 'not either of two', and over time the unstressed syllables wore away until only the compact nor remained. From the start it worked as a negative linking word, most often paired with neither to rule out a second possibility, as in 'neither this nor that'. The smoothing down of a longer phrase into a single tidy syllable is why the spelling is so short and gives no hint of its 'no other' ancestry. Today nor survives almost entirely in this pairing or after an earlier negative clause, a quiet remnant of a much older grammatical pattern.

How the word is built

• nor (contraction of Middle English nother: 'no'
• 'other')