Word.ws English Dictionary

nay-say

nay-say noun: a refusal, denial, or negation.

Noun

nay-say (plural nay-says)

  1. (dated) A refusal, denial, or negation.
    • "That," replied Miss Lucy, "depends entirely on the manner in which the nay-says are said."1816, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 5, in The Black Dwarf

Verb

nay-say (third-person singular simple present nay-says, present participle nay-saying, simple past and past participle nay-said)

  1. (transitive) To refuse, deny, or oppose someone or something.
  2. (intransitive) To speak negatively of something.

Forms of nay-say

Noun
pluralnay-says
alternative formnaysay
Verb
third-person singular presentnay-says
present participlenay-saying
past participlenay-said
pastnay-said

Questions about nay-say

What does nay-say mean?
Nay-say means a refusal, denial, or negation.
What part of speech is nay-say?
Nay-say can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of nay-say?
The plural of nay-say is nay-says.

Words near nay-say in the dictionary

  1. Naxçivan
  2. nay
  3. Nay Pyi Daw
  4. Nay Pyi Taw
  5. nay-said
  6. nay-say
  7. nay-sayer
  8. nay-sayers
  9. nay-saying
  10. nay-sayings
  11. nay-says

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nay-say (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-nay-say.wav.

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