Word.ws English Dictionary

ne'er-do-wells

ne'er-do-wells is the plural of ne'er-do-well.

Meaning of ne'er-do-well

Noun

ne'er-do-well (plural ne'er-do-wells)

  1. 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
  2. A person who is up to no good; a rogue.

See all 3 meanings of ne'er-do-well

Questions about ne'er-do-wells

What is ne'er-do-wells the plural of?
Ne'er-do-wells is the plural of ne'er-do-well.

Words near ne'er-do-wells in the dictionary

  1. ne plus ultra
  2. ne plus ultras
  3. ne'er
  4. ne'er cast a clout till May be out
  5. ne'er-do-well
  6. ne'er-do-wells
  7. ne'ertheless
  8. ne'ery
  9. Ne'ila
  10. ne.
  11. ne1

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ne'er-do-wells (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “ne'er-do-wells.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ne%27er-do-wells. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.