Word.ws English Dictionary

nod

UK/nɒd//nɑd/

nod verb: to incline the head up and down, as to indicate agreement.

Verb

nod (third-person singular simple present nods, present participle nodding, simple past and past participle nodded)

  1. (ambitransitive) To incline the head up and down, as to indicate agreement.
    • ‘She has big breasts’, Chuck said. ‘Who? Patty? Oh yes.’ Hentman nodded. ‘Well, it’s that operation they give in Hollywood and New York. It’s more the rage now than the dilation, and she’s had that done, too.’1964, Philip K. Dick, “TWELVE”, in Clans of the Alphane Moon, United States: Ace Books, →OCLC; republished London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1996, →ISBN, page 173
  2. (ambitransitive) To briefly incline the head downwards as a cursory greeting.
  3. (ambitransitive) To sway, move up and down.
    • By every wind that nods the mountain pine.1818, John Keats, “Book I”, in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: […] T[homas] Miller, […] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, page 1
    • Frail snowdrops that together cling / and nod their helmets, smitten by the wing / of many a furious whirl-blast sweeping by.1819, William Wordsworth, On Seeing a Tuft of Snowdrops in a Storm
  4. (intransitive) To gradually fall asleep.
  5. (transitive) To signify by a nod.
    • They nodded their assent.
  6. (intransitive) To make a mistake by being temporarily inattentive or tired
    • Even Homer nods.
  7. (intransitive, transitive) To head; to strike the ball with one's head.
    • Jones nods the ball back to his goalkeeper.
    • With the hosts not able to find their passes - everything that went forward was too heavy or too short - Terry once again had to come to his side's rescue after Davies had brilliantly nodded into the path of Elmander, who followed up swiftly with a deflected shot.2010 December 29, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC
  8. (figuratively, intransitive) To allude to something.
    • Though the title nods to the Italian neo-realist classic Bicycle Thieves—and Cyril, much like the father and son in that movie, spends much of his time tracking down the oft-stolen possession—The Kid With A Bike isn’t about the bike as something essential to his livelihood, but as his sole...March 15 2012, Soctt Tobias, The Kid With A Bike [Review]
  9. (intransitive, slang) To fall asleep while under the influence of opiates.

Noun (1)

nod (plural nods)

  1. An instance of inclining the head up and down, as to indicate agreement, or as a cursory greeting.
  2. A reference or allusion to something.
    • Much like Mirror Mirror, Huntsman appears to borrow liberally from other fantasy films. Sometimes the nods are clever—Stewart’s first night in the forest, among hallucinatory fog that gives the trees faces and clutching hands, evokes Disney’s animated Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs from 1937.2012 May 31, Tasha Robinson, “Film: Review: Snow White And The Huntsman”, in AV Club
    • Early into Zootopia 2, a character celebrates how easy it was to teach everyone to “set aside their differences and solve bias and prejudice forever”—a winking nod towards the mixed reception of the first film’s themes.2025 November 25, Caroline Siede, “Zootopia 2 is a stagnant sequel with one stellar subplot”, in AV Club
  3. A nomination.
    • For the fifth time in her career she received a Grammy nod, she has yet to win the award.
    • Allen Gregory DeLongpre: Really putting a damper on the ol' Tony nod.2011 Allen Gregory, "Pilot" (season 1, episode 1)
  4. (figuratively) Approval.
    • The plan is expected to get the nod from councillors at the next meeting.
    • Has the BRB received a secret nod from the Ministry to continue the LMR electrification from Weaver Junction to Glasgow?1964 August, “News and Comment: One main line to Scotland?”, in Modern Railways, page 86
  5. A state of half-consciousness; stupor.
    • Withered addicts drooped into chronic heroin nods.1988 August 20, Wickie Stamps, “Voluptuous Nudes and Withered Addicts”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 6, page 7

Noun (2) capitalized: NOD

NOD (plural NODs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of notice Of disagreement; filed by an appellant in response to a denial of veteran's benefits in United States law.
  2. (US, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Night Optical/Observation Device.

nod meaning in Arabic, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese

nod in Arabic

incline the head up and down
أَوْمَأَ ʔawmaʔa, أَوْمَأَ بِرَأْسِهِ ʔawmaʔa biraʔsihi
instance of moving one's head
إِيمَاءَة ʔīmāʔa, هَزَّة hazza

nod in Indonesian

incline the head up and down
mengangguk
instance of moving one's head
anggukan

nod in Thai

incline the head up and down
ผงก pà-ngòk, พยัก pá-yák, พยักหน้า
gradually fall asleep
งุบ ngúp, สัปหงก, โงก ngôok

nod in Vietnamese

incline the head up and down
gật đầu, gật
More languagesFewer languages
nod in Myanmar
ညိတ် nyit, ငိုက် nguik

Examples of nod in a sentence

  • His account of the incident was so prosaic that I nodded off while reading it.
  • Last night she was rambling on about horticultural methods, which was so soothing that I nodded off.
  • I signalled my acquiescence with a nod.

All 40 example sentences with nod

Forms of nod

Verb
third-person singular presentnods
present participlenodding
past participlenodded
pastnodded
Noun
pluralnods
pluralNODs

Past tense of nod: nodded

Plural of nod: nods

Origin of nod

From Middle English nodden, probably from an unrecorded Old English *hnodian (“to nod, shake the head”), from Proto-West Germanic *hnodōn, from Proto-Germanic *hnudōną (“to beat, rivet, pound, push”), from Proto-Indo-European *kendʰ-, from *ken- (“to scratch, scrape, rub”). Compare Old High German hnotōn (“to shake”), hnutten (“to shake, rattle, vibrate”) (> modern dialectal German notteln, nütteln (“to rock, move back and forth”)), Faroese njóða (“to clench a nail”), Icelandic hnjóða (“to rivet, clinch”), Faroese noða (“to double by bending”), Icelandic hnoða (“to clinch, rivet”).

Words formed from nod

Phrases with nod

Words that rhyme with nod

26 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about nod

What does nod mean?
Nod means to incline the head up and down, as to indicate agreement.
What is nod in Arabic?
Nod in Arabic is أَوْمَأَ (ʔawmaʔa), أَوْمَأَ بِرَأْسِهِ (ʔawmaʔa biraʔsihi), إِيمَاءَة (ʔīmāʔa). See Nod meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is nod?
Nod can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce nod?
Nod is pronounced /nɒd/ (UK).
What is the past tense of nod?
The past tense of nod is nodded.

Words near nod in the dictionary

  1. nocuity
  2. nocument
  3. nocuous
  4. nocuously
  5. nocuousness
  6. nod
  7. nod in
  8. nod off
  9. nod out
  10. nod through
  11. nod-back

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nod (page history and authors); NOD (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-nod.ogg.

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