Word.ws English Dictionary

nelly

/ˈnɛli/UK/nɛli/

nelly noun: a person's life.

Noun (1)

nelly (plural nellies)

  1. (Cockney, slang) A person's life.

Noun (2)

nelly (plural nellies)

  1. (derogatory, slang) An effeminate homosexual man.
  2. (UK, slang) A silly person.
  3. A giant petrel, Macronectes giganteus and Macronectes halli.

Adjective

nelly (comparative nellier, superlative nelliest)

  1. (slang) Unmanly; effeminate.
    • From Christopher Street to Castro Street, these men are peddling the same message. I'm butch, a macho man. Well, it ain't necessarily so. In fact, as a general rule of thumb, the butcher the get-up, the nellier the wearer.1979 April 21, Greg Jackson, “He Looks Like Tarzan But He Talks Like Jane”, in Gay Community News, page 17
    • Some of the nelliest boys unable to get or keep a job, some of the toughest girls breaking their bodies trying to do men's work.2012, Lee Lynch, The Raid

Proper noun capitalized: Nelly

Nelly

  1. (alternative) Alternative spelling of Nellie.
  2. One of the Frazier Islands where nellies breed.
  3. A surname.

nelly meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Kannada

nelly in Hindi

नेली, नैली

nelly in Marathi

नेली

nelly in Bengali

নেল্লি, নেলি

nelly in Kannada

ನೆಲ್ಲಿ
More languagesFewer languages
nelly in Punjabi
ਨੈਲੀ
nelly in Odia
ନେଲ୍ଲି, ନେଲି

Forms of nelly

Noun
pluralnellies
Adjective
comparativenellier
superlativenelliest

Plural of nelly: nellies

Origin of nelly

Shortened from Nelly Duff, for puff, i.e. breath of life.

From the woman's name Nelly.

Words formed from nelly

Phrases with nelly

Words that rhyme with nelly

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about nelly

What does nelly mean?
Nelly means a person's life.
What is nelly in Hindi?
Nelly in Hindi is नेली, नैली. See Nelly meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is nelly?
Nelly can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce nelly?
Nelly is pronounced /nɛli/ (UK).
What is the plural of nelly?
The plural of nelly is nellies.

Words near nelly in the dictionary

  1. Nelligan
  2. Nelligans
  3. Nelligen
  4. Nellim
  5. Nellore
  6. nelly
  7. nelma
  8. nelmas
  9. Nelms
  10. Nelmses
  11. Nelon

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nelly (page history and authors); Nelly (page history and authors); nelly (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nelly (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nelly (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nelly (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nelly (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); nelly (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-au-nelly.ogg.

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