Word.ws English Dictionary

nê

nê adverb: as interrogative particle: "isn't that the case?"; also used with emphatic effect.

Adverb

nê

  1. (South Africa, colloquial) As interrogative particle: "isn't that the case?"; also used with emphatic effect.
    • Then you are not come as a recruit to our ranks, but have already ducked your head to a bullet, nê?1900, Harold Blore, An Imperial Light Horseman
    • No, we like this place, exotic for us whites, nê.2012, Nadine Gordimer, No Time Like the Present, Bloomsbury, published 2013, page 21

Origin of nê

From Afrikaans nè, probably short for newaar (“isn't that true?”), colloquial variant of nie waar.

Questions about nê

What does nê mean?
Nê means as interrogative particle: "isn't that the case?"; also used with emphatic effect.
What part of speech is nê?
Nê is an adverb.

Words near nê in the dictionary

  1. négligés
  2. Nérac
  3. Néville-sur-Mer
  4. névé
  5. névés
  6. nê
  7. nêhinawêwin
  8. Nîmes
  9. Nógrád
  10. Nôtre Dame
  11. Nösnerland

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nê (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.

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Cite this entry: “nê.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/n%C3%AA. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.