Word.ws English Dictionary

nacre

/ˈneɪkə/US/ˈneɪkəɹ/

nacre noun: a shellfish which contains mother-of-pearl.

nacre: a shellfish which contains mother-of-pearl
Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

nacre (countable and uncountable, plural nacres)

  1. (obsolete) A shellfish which contains mother-of-pearl.
    • The shell-fish called a Nacre, liveth even so with the Pinnotere, which is a little creature like unto a Crabfish[…].1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
  2. A pearly substance made mainly of stacked layers of aragonite and organic matter which lines the interior of many shells; mother-of-pearl.
    • On a little table of dark perfumed wood thickly encrusted with nacre, […]was lying a note from Lord Henry, and beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn and the edges soiled.1891, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

nacre meaning in Tamil and Bengali

nacre in Tamil

முத்தைத்தரும் தாய்க்கரு

nacre in Bengali

ঝিনুকের অভ্যন্তরস্থ শক্ত, মসৃণ, চকচকে, অলংকার ইত্যাদি তৈরি হয়, শুক্তিপুট

Forms of nacre

pluralnacres
alternative form (obsolete)naker
alternative form (obsolete)nacker
alternative form (obsolete)nakir
alternative form (obsolete)nackir

Origin of nacre

Borrowed from Middle French nacre, from Medieval Latin nacchara, ultimately derived from Arabic نَقَّارَة (naqqāra). Doublet of nagara, nagada, naqareh, and naker. Also present in nacarat.

Words formed from nacre

Words that rhyme with nacre

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about nacre

What does nacre mean?
Nacre means a shellfish which contains mother-of-pearl.
What is nacre in Tamil?
Nacre in Tamil is முத்தைத்தரும் தாய்க்கரு. See Nacre meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is nacre?
Nacre is a noun.
How do you pronounce nacre?
Nacre is pronounced /ˈneɪkə/ (UK).
What is the plural of nacre?
The plural of nacre is nacres.

Words near nacre in the dictionary

  1. nacodas
  2. NACODS
  3. Nacogdoches
  4. Nacogdoches County
  5. nacolomab tafenatox
  6. nacre
  7. nacred
  8. nacrein
  9. nacreous
  10. nacreous cloud
  11. nacreous clouds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nacre (page history and authors); nacre (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); nacre (Bengali Wiktionary) (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: En-uk-nacre.ogg.

Cite this entry: “nacre.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nacre. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.