ne'er-do-well
UK/ˈnɛə.duˌwɛl//ˈnɛɹ.duˌwɛl/
ne'er-do-well noun: a person without a means of support; an idle, worthless person; a loafer; a person who is ineffectual, unsuccessful, or completely lacking in merit; a good-for-nothing.
Noun
ne'er-do-well (plural ne'er-do-wells)
- A person without a means of support; an idle, worthless person; a loafer; a person who is ineffectual, unsuccessful, or completely lacking in merit; a good-for-nothing.
- So they have trooped forth to organize village down-and-outs and ne'er-do-wells into would-be combat units.1933, The Commonweal, volume 19, page 241
- Clara's father, a trollish ne'er-do-well who spent most of his time in brothels and saloons, would disappear for days and weeks at a stretch, leaving Clara and her mother to fend for themselves.2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 26
- A person who is up to no good; a rogue.
Adjective
ne'er-do-well (comparative more ne'er-do-well, superlative most ne'er-do-well)
- Showing the characteristics of a ne'er-do-well: indolent, worthless, or roguish.
- The brother who sought me out and would have redeemed me from the power of darkness, but he couldn't; and has robbed himself of joy and comfort in life to keep his ne'er-do-well brother from starvation; who has paid his debts over and taken him out of jail again and again....1859, George Sargent, The Story of a Pocket Bible, The Religious Tract Society, page 392
- Before the 1850s, when women figured most prominently in textile employment, the reasons that caused women to seek paid labor—a ne'er-do-well husband, economic distress of the natal family, or a belief that factory work was a road to self-betterment—often precluded their considering an...2010, Susan Cayleff, Wash and Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and Women's Health, Temple University Press, page 88
- Synonyms:
- good-for-nothing, nogoodnik, vagabond, never-do-well
Synonyms of ne'er-do-well
Forms of ne'er-do-well
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | ne'er-do-wells |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more ne'er-do-well |
| superlative | most ne'er-do-well |
Origin of ne'er-do-well
From the phrase never do well. "Ne'er-do-well" is a contracted compound word stemming from the combination of the words "never do well." “Never-do-well” is sometimes used as an offhand, expanded version of the phrase, where “never” is not contracted. The usage of this version is often attributed to the northeastern United States.
Questions about ne'er-do-well
- What does ne'er-do-well mean?
- Ne'er-do-well means a person without a means of support; an idle, worthless person; a loafer; a person who is ineffectual, unsuccessful, or completely lacking in merit; a good-for-nothing.
- What part of speech is ne'er-do-well?
- Ne'er-do-well can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce ne'er-do-well?
- Ne'er-do-well is pronounced /ˈnɛə.duˌwɛl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of ne'er-do-well?
- The plural of ne'er-do-well is ne'er-do-wells.
Words near ne'er-do-well in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ne'er-do-well (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: en-us-ne'er-do-well.ogg.
Cite this entry: “ne'er-do-well.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ne%27er-do-well. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.