Word.ws English Dictionary

nee

/neɪ/

nee is the alternative spelling of née.

Meaning of née

Adjective

née (not comparable)

  1. Used when giving the maiden name of a woman.
    • Mrs Smith, née Jones
  2. Used when giving a former name. Originally known as.
    • Since the name change, Butch (née Frances) seems more tough and self-assured.

Adjective

nee (not comparable)

  1. (English, North-American) Used when giving a former name. Originally known as.

Interjection

IPA/niː/

  1. (Geordie) no, used to express no as a quantity, i.e. not any, like German kein/Dutch geen/French rien. Compare with na.
    • Nee way man!
    • Thor's nee watter!

Proper noun (1) capitalized: NEE

NEE

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of NextEra Energy.
    • ExxonMobil (XOM), once the world’s most valuable company, was recently surpassed in market capitalization by wind and solar company NextEra Energy (NEE).2020 October 19, Matt Egan, “The oil industry is in crisis. ConocoPhillips is doubling down”, in CNN Business

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Nee

Nee (plural Nees)

  1. A surname.

Forms of nee

Adjective
alternative formnée
Proper noun
pluralNees

Origin of nee

From French née, feminine of né, past participle of naître, to be born.

From French née (“(f)”) and né (“(m)”), past participle of naître, to be born. Mix of both gendered terms due to their homophony, resulting in a unisex term in English.

From Old English ne or nā (“no”). Cognate with Standard English no.

Words formed from nee

Phrases with nee

Words that rhyme with nee

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about nee

What does nee mean?
Nee means used when giving a former name. Originally known as.
What is nee the alternative spelling of?
Nee is the alternative spelling of née.
What part of speech is nee?
Nee can be an adjective, an interjection or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce nee?
Nee is pronounced /neɪ/.

Words near nee in the dictionary

  1. Nedveds
  2. Nedward
  3. Nedwards
  4. Nedwin
  5. Nedwins
  6. nee
  7. nee nor
  8. nee way
  9. nee'n't
  10. nee-naw
  11. neeb

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nee (page history and authors); NEE (page history and authors); Nee (page history and authors); née (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-nee.wav, En-us-nay.ogg.

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