Word.ws English Dictionary

nighen

nighen verb: to come near; approach.

Verb

nighen (third-person singular simple present nighens, present participle nighening, simple past and past participle nighened)

  1. (intransitive) To come near; approach.
    • [...] with so horrible countenance, that no man dare not nighen towards him.1807, George Burnett, Specimens of English prose-writers
  2. (transitive) To bring near; appropriate.
    • If you take an apple from the table you (1) reach forth the hand to it, (2) you close your fingers on it, (3) you nighen or bring back your hand with it.1886, William Barnes, A glossary of the Dorset dialect

Forms of nighen

third-person singular presentnighens
present participlenighening
past participlenighened
pastnighened

Origin of nighen

From Middle English neiȝnen, equivalent to nigh + -en. Cognate with German nähnen.

Questions about nighen

What does nighen mean?
Nighen means to come near; approach.
What part of speech is nighen?
Nighen is a verb.
What is the past tense of nighen?
The past tense of nighen is nighened.

Words near nighen in the dictionary

  1. nighabout
  2. nighabouts
  3. nighantu
  4. nighantus
  5. nighed
  6. nighen
  7. nighens
  8. nigher
  9. nighered
  10. nighering
  11. nighers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nighen (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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