Word.ws English Dictionary

naw

UK/nɔː/US/nɔ/

naw interjection: no. Also the pronunciation spelling of not.

Interjection

  1. (informal) No.
    • But listen Willis
      You do understand, don't you?
      Naw, I don't think so.
      Larry?1986, Melvin Dixon, “The Boy with Beer”, in Joseph Beam, editor, In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology, page 27
    • "Naw, no trouble. Just pulled off the road for about ten minutes, maybe, when a couple of Nip fighters banked overhead. They were after something or other." "Is that right?" Mac replied.2003, Anton F. Bilek, Tony Bilek, Gene O'Connell, No Uncle Sam: The Forgotten of Bataan, Kent State University Press, →ISBN, page 31

Also used as

naw is also the pronunciation spelling of not.

Origin of naw

In Scottish use, from Scots naw, naa, na, from Middle English na, from Old English nā (“no, never”). More generally, a colloquial, unarticulated form of no; compare nah. More at no.

Phrases with naw

Words that rhyme with naw

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about naw

What does naw mean?
Naw means no.
What part of speech is naw?
Naw is an interjection.
How do you pronounce naw?
Naw is pronounced /nɔː/ (UK).

Words near naw in the dictionary

  1. navy yard
  2. navy yards
  3. navyish
  4. navyless
  5. navyspeak
  6. naw
  7. Naw-Rúz
  8. NAWA
  9. nawaab
  10. nawaabs
  11. nawab

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: naw (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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