Word.ws English Dictionary

nowt

[nɔʊʔ]

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/naʊt/

nowt pronoun: naught, nothing.

nowt: naught, nothing
Image: Bill Nicholls, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Pronoun

nowt

  1. (Northern England) Naught, nothing.
    • Today I have achieved absolutely nowt / In just being out of the house, I've lost out2004, “It Was Supposed to Be So Easy”, in Mike Skinner (lyrics), A Grand Don’t Come For Free, performed by The Streets
    Synonyms:
    noot

Noun (1)

nowt (uncountable)

  1. (Northern England, Sussex) Naught, nothing.
  2. (Yorkshire, Lancashire) A person of no importance; a worthless person; a ne'er-do-well.
    • Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking - yah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!1847, Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
    • ... and great hectoring nowts like yond' Irish Peter, Helstone's curate.1849, Charlotte Bronte, Shirley

Adverb

nowt (not comparable)

  1. (Northern England) Naught, nothing.

Noun (2)

nowt (plural nowts)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland) An ox.
  2. (Northern England, Scotland) A herd of cattle.
  3. (Northern England, Scotland, figuratively) A dumb, crass, or clumsy person, or a person who is difficult or stubborn.
    • A hunner guineas for the heid o' that nowt Renwick, and him no' sae very far awa' frae your very nose at this meenit.1929, James William Marriott, editor, The Best One-act Plays of 1931, G.G. Harrap, published 1932, page 162

nowt meaning in Tamil

nowt in Tamil

இன்மை

Synonyms of nowt

Antonyms

Forms of nowt

pluralnowts
alternative form (obsolete, dialectal)nolt

Origin of nowt

Dialectal pronunciation of naught. Akin to West Frisian neat (“nothing”), German nichts (“nothing”).

From Middle English nowte, noute, nawte, naute, borrowed from Old Norse naut, from Proto-Germanic *nautą. Cognate with Old English nēat, English neat.

Words formed from nowt

Phrases with nowt

Words that rhyme with nowt

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about nowt

What does nowt mean?
Nowt means naught, nothing.
What is nowt in Tamil?
Nowt in Tamil is இன்மை. See Nowt meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is nowt?
Nowt can be a pronoun, a noun or an adverb.
How do you pronounce nowt?
Nowt is pronounced /naʊt/ (Northern England).

Words near nowt in the dictionary

  1. Nowroze
  2. Nowruz
  3. nows
  4. nowsaday
  5. nowstalgia
  6. nowt
  7. nowthe
  8. nowts
  9. nowy
  10. Nowy Sącz
  11. Nowy Targ

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nowt (page history and authors); nowt (Tamil Wiktionary) (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-nowt.wav.

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