né
/neɪ/
né adjective: used when giving the former name of a man.
Adjective
né (not comparable)
- Used when giving the former name of a man.
- Sting, né Gordon Sumner
- It remained in the custody of Mr Svlad, or "Dirk", Gently, né Cjelli.1987, Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, William Heinemann Ltd, page 23
- Used when giving a man's name of birth, which was legally changed after.
Particle
né
- Yeah? not so? hey?
- so I saw this girl né, and I wanted to talk to her...
Origin of né
From French né, from Old French né, from Latin nātus, perfect active participle of nāscor (“to be born”). Doublet of nada.
Borrowed from Afrikaans nee.
Words that rhyme with né
Questions about né
- What does né mean?
- Né means used when giving the former name of a man.
- What part of speech is né?
- Né can be an adjective or a particle.
- How do you pronounce né?
- Né is pronounced /neɪ/.
Words near né in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: né (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-né.wav.
Cite this entry: “né.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/n%C3%A9. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.