Word.ws English Dictionary

neif

/niːf/

neif noun: a woman born in the state of serfdom; a female serf. Also the alternative spelling of nief.

Noun

neif (plural neifs)

  1. (historical) A woman born in the state of serfdom; a female serf.
    • Neifs indeed had also an appeal of rape, in case the lord violated them by force1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC

Also used as

neif is also the alternative spelling of nief.

Forms of neif

pluralneifs
alternative formneife
alternative formnief

Origin of neif

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman neif m, niefe f (“native, serf”), from Latin nātīvus m, nātīva f (“native”). Doublet of naïf and native.

Words that rhyme with neif

17 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about neif

What does neif mean?
Neif means a woman born in the state of serfdom; a female serf.
What part of speech is neif?
Neif is a noun.
How do you pronounce neif?
Neif is pronounced /niːf/.
What is the plural of neif?
The plural of neif is neifs.

Words near neif in the dictionary

  1. Neidigh
  2. Neidighs
  3. Neidigs
  4. Neidlinger
  5. Neidlingers
  6. neif
  7. neife
  8. Neifert
  9. Neiferts
  10. neifes
  11. neifs

Source and license

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