nanny
/ˈnæni/
nanny noun: a child's nurse.
Noun
nanny (plural nannies)
- A child's nurse.
- The nanny was keeping a close watch on her little charges.
- Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall. Just under the ceiling there were three lunette windows, heavily barred and blacked out in the normal way by centuries of grime. Their bases were on a level with the pavement outside, a narrow way which was several feet lower than the road behind the...1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 14, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- housemother
- A grandmother.
- A godmother.
- A female goat.
- Breeding is a consuming goal, and the ascendance of the sex drive is nearly as apparent in the behavior of a mountain goat billy. So given over is he to following and defending a succession of nannies as he searches for one in heat (estrus), he loses interest in food altogether; […]1983, Douglas H. Chadwick, A Beast the Color of Winter: The Mountain Goat Observed, Bison Books, published 2002, →ISBN, page 159
- Nannies and billies look very similar, both having dangerously sharp, curved black horns.2005, Richard Cannings, The Rockies: A Natural History, Greystone Books, published 2005, →ISBN, page 103
- Synonyms:
- nanny goat
- Synonym of sylvester (“device for pulling out pit props”).
- Synonyms:
- sylvester
Verb
nanny (third-person singular simple present nannies, present participle nannying, simple past and past participle nannied)
- To serve as a nanny.
- To treat like a nanny's charges; to coddle.
- In real life, says a Democratic campaign aide, members of Congress are too nannied by staff to stride about hatching plots, one-on-one.2013 February 21, “Unreality television”, in The Economist
- All politicians seem worried. After 40-plus years of being nannied by the EU they are now faced with having to stand on their own two feet.2016 June 24, Angie Willems, “'A drastic change was necessary' - Coventry reacts to Brexit vote”, in Coventry Telegraph
Proper noun capitalized: Nanny
Nanny
- A diminutive of the female given names Ann and Anne.
nanny meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
nanny in Hindi
- child's nurse
- दाई dāī, आया āyā
nanny in Tamil
- செவிலித் தாய், பெட்டை வௌளாடு
nanny in Urdu
- child's nurse
- دائِی dāī, آیا āyā
nanny in Bengali
- child's nurse
- আয়া aẏa
More languagesFewer languages
- nanny in Malayalam
- ആയ āya
- nanny in Pashto
- دايه dāyá, دايي dāyí, تيي tayí
- nanny in Tagalog
- yaya
- nanny in Arabic
- مُرَبِّيَة murabbiya
- nanny in Malay
- pengasuh
- nanny in Indonesian
- pengasuh
- nanny in Thai
- พี่เลี้ยง pîi-líiang
- nanny in Vietnamese
- nhũ mẫu, nhũ nương, nhũ ảo
- nanny in Myanmar
- အာယား aya:
Examples of nanny in a sentence
- Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 14, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
- A baby monitor picks up the sounds of a nanny when she goes into labor—if the nanny is one who changes the usual pitch of her voice or nervously bleats during kidding.2013, Janet Hurst, The Whole Goat Handbook: Recipes, Cheese, Soap, Crafts & More, Voyageur Press, published 2013, →ISBN, page 28:
Synonyms of nanny
Forms of nanny
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | nannies |
| alternative form | nannie |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | nannies |
| present participle | nannying |
| past participle | nannied |
| past | nannied |
Origin of nanny
From nan (“grandmother; nursemaid”) + -y. The root is from nana (“grandma; nanny”), which is from nanna (“grandmother”), which is possibly derived from Proto-Celtic *nana (“grandmother”). See also Proto-Brythonic *nanī, Welsh nain (“grandmother”), Galician nana (“mama”), Spanish nana (“granny; nanny; mommy; housekeeper”), Sicilian nanna (“grandma”), Italian nonna (“granny”), Late Latin nonna (“nun; tutoress; old woman”), Norman nonne (“nun”), Old French nonain (“nun”). All probably ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root imitative of a child babbling, similar to Ancient Greek νάννα (nánna). (1795) It has often been assumed that the English term was originally a widespread child's word for "female adult other than mother" (compare Greek νάννα (nánna, “aunt”), nanna). On the other hand, according to recent research of the Dutch historical linguists Hans Beelen and Nicoline van der Sijs (published in Onze Taal, September 2018), on which see also etymologiebank.nl, in Dutch), the term nanny (and the British colloquial nan for "grandmother") may actually be eponymous, viz. being originally an affective form (i.e. a hypocoristic) of the popular female name Anne. The Dutch statesman...
Words formed from nanny
Phrases with nanny
Words that rhyme with nanny
Questions about nanny
- What does nanny mean?
- Nanny means a child's nurse.
- What is nanny in Hindi?
- Nanny in Hindi is दाई (dāī), आया (āyā). See Nanny meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use nanny in a sentence?
- Nanny Broome was looking up at the outer wall.
- What part of speech is nanny?
- Nanny can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce nanny?
- Nanny is pronounced /ˈnæni/.
- What is the plural of nanny?
- The plural of nanny is nannies.
Words near nanny in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nanny (page history and authors); Nanny (page history and authors); nanny (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ആയ (Malayalam) (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-nanny.wav.
Cite this entry: “nanny.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nanny. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.