Nuisance

How to spell nuisance

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce nuisance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nuisance mean?

1. nounA person, thing, or situation that causes annoyance, inconvenience, or harm.

Nuisance in a sentence

• The constant roadworks outside the office have become a real nuisance.

• Leaving dirty dishes in the shared kitchen is a daily nuisance for everyone.

Where does nuisance come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the early 1400s from Anglo-French and Old French nuisance, meaning 'harm' or 'injury'. It was built on the Old French verb nuire, 'to harm or to hurt', which descends from the Latin nocere, meaning 'to do harm' or 'to injure'. At first an English nuisance was a genuine injury or a hurtful thing, especially in legal language about damage to land or rights, and that strict legal sense survives today in phrases like 'public nuisance'. Over the centuries the everyday meaning softened from real harm to mere annoyance or inconvenience. The same Latin nocere root sits inside the familiar words 'noxious', 'obnoxious', and 'innocent' (literally 'not harming'), and remembering the 'nui' opening, so unlike the way the word sounds, is the key to spelling it.

How the word is built

• nuis- (from Old French nuire: to harm)
• -ance (noun suffix denoting a state or action)