Word.ws English Dictionary

ne

/nə/

ne adverb: not.

Adverb (1)

ne (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete or deliberately archaic) Not.
    • For she ne dare doo, but to commande.c. 1500, Melusine (translation)
    • And whan the good quene herde these pyteous tydynges lytel lacked that the ne dyed for sorowe / wherfore all lamentably the began to complayne her sayenge.1512, Robert Copland, The History of Helyas, Knight of The Swan

Conjunction

ne

  1. (obsolete) Nor.
    • That than I shall not geve therunto faith ne credence, nor therfore put them to any maner ponyssement, before that they or any of them so accused may be at their lawful defence and answer.1484, Original Letters, King Edward the Fifth, under the direction of his Uncle, to Otes Gilbert, Esq., commanding him to receive Knighthood at the expected Coronation
    • And therin is no drede nor bytternes ne expences, but therin is pure recreacyon of body and of soule soo it be donn in clene places.1489, The gouernayle of helthe

Adverb (2)

ne (not comparable)

  1. (New Zealand) "Isn't that so?" (used in representations of Maori English).
    • Then, he had only chuckled again and said, “Well, we got him on the way, ne?”1983, Keri Hulme, The Bone People, Penguin, published 1986, page 6

Proper noun capitalized: NE

NE

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of Nebraska: a state of the United States.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of New English.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of New England: a geographic region of the United States.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of New Executable (executable file format used by early 16-bit versions of Microsoft Windows and IBM OS/2).

Noun capitalized: NE

NE (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of northeast, a cardinal point of the compass.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of norepinephrine.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of northern epilepsy syndrome

Adjective capitalized: NE

NE (not comparable)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of northeastern.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of not evaluated.

Examples of ne in a sentence

  • This shold haue bene his skuce at the lest / And it ne had bene but good & honest.c. 1520, Andria by Terence (translation)
  • O so incessaunt thow ad in thy desyre / For so that thow thy mynde now mayst haue / Thow ne caryst what thow dost requyre.c. 1520, Andria by Terence (translation)
  • For he ne had, nor could increase his line.1550, The Mirror for Magistrates:
  • In geving me to him whom I ne can, ne may, ne ought to love.1562, Arthur Brooke, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet:

All 40 example sentences with ne

Origin of ne

From Middle English ne, from Old English ne, from Proto-West Germanic *ne, from Proto-Germanic *ne, from Proto-Indo-European *né. Cognates include Gothic 𐌽𐌹 (ni), Latin nē, Sanskrit न (na), Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Russian не (ne), Lithuanian ne, Irish ní.

From Māori nē.

Phrases with ne

Questions about ne

What does ne mean?
Ne means not.
How do you use ne in a sentence?
This shold haue bene his skuce at the lest / And it ne had bene but good & honest.
What part of speech is ne?
Ne can be an adverb, a conjunction, a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce ne?
Ne is pronounced /nə/.

Words near ne in the dictionary

  1. nduja
  2. Ndumbea
  3. Ndyuka
  4. Ndyukas
  5. Ndzundza
  6. ne
  7. ne bis in idem
  8. ne exeat
  9. ne exeats
  10. ne plus ultra
  11. ne plus ultras

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ne (page history and authors); NE (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-ne.wav.

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