Word.ws English Dictionary

nanna

nanna noun: grandmother.

Noun

nanna (plural nannas)

  1. grandmother

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Nanna

Nanna

  1. (Norse) A goddess, the wife of Balder.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Nanna

Nanna

  1. The god of the moon in Sumerian mythology.
    Synonyms:
    Nanna-Suen, Sin, Suen

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Nanna

Nanna (plural Nannas)

  1. A surname from Italian.

Synonyms of nanna

Forms of nanna

Noun
pluralnannas
alternative formnana
alternative formnan
Proper noun
pluralNannas

Origin of nanna

Possibly derived from Proto-Celtic *nana (“grandmother”); probably from a Proto-Indo-European root imitative of a child babbling, similar to Ancient Greek νάννα (nánna). See also nanny. Compare Welsh nain, Sicilian nanna, Italian nonna, Norman nonne, Galician nana, Spanish nana, Old French nonain, Late Latin nonna.

Uncertain, probably from Old Norse Nanna, with Norse levelling of -nþ- to -nn- from Proto-Germanic *nanþ- (“brave, daring”), related to *ninþaną (“to dare”); or possibly from an Old Norse baby talk word for "mother," as in nanna, nanny.

Learned borrowing from Sumerian 𒀭𒋀𒆠 (ᵈnanna /⁠Nanna⁠/).

Phrases with nanna

Questions about nanna

What does nanna mean?
Nanna means grandmother.
What part of speech is nanna?
Nanna can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of nanna?
The plural of nanna is nannas.

Words near nanna in the dictionary

  1. Nanling
  2. Nanling Mountains
  3. nanlingite
  4. Nanming
  5. nanmu
  6. nanna
  7. nanna nap
  8. nanna naps
  9. nanna wobble
  10. nanna wobbles
  11. Nanna-Suen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nanna (page history and authors); Nanna (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: “nanna.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nanna. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.