Word.ws English Dictionary

nudnik

/ˈnʌdnɪk//ˈnʊdnɪk/

nudnik noun: a person who is very annoying; a pest, a nag, a jerk.

Noun

nudnik (plural nudniks)

  1. (US, attributive, colloquial, sometimes) A person who is very annoying; a pest, a nag, a jerk.
    • He interrupts people, and he is not interested in anything except what concerns him and his brother. He is a nudnick!1992, Richard Preston quoting Samuel Eilenberg, The New Yorker, 2 March, "The Mountains of Pi"
    • Juliana greeted strangers with a portentous, nudnik, Mona Lisa smile that hung them up between responses, whether to say hello or not.1962, Philip K. Dick, “The Man in the High Castle”, in Four Novels of the 1960s, Library of America, published 2007, page 15

nudnik meaning in Tamil

nudnik in Tamil

மந்தப்பூச்சி

Forms of nudnik

pluralnudniks
alternative formnoodnick
alternative formnoodnik
alternative formnudnick

Origin of nudnik

From Yiddish נודניק (nudnik), from the root of נודיען (nudyen, “to bore”) + ־ניק (-nik, noun-forming suffix) (English -nik), both of Slavic origin. The root derives from Proto-Slavic *nùditi (“to compel”) and the noun *nùďa (“need, necessity”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *new- or *neh₂w- (“to lack, need; to perish”). The suffix is from Proto-Slavic *-ьnikъ (forming agent nouns and objects). Compare Russian ну́дный (núdnyj, “tedious”), Ukrainian нудни́й (nudnýj, “boring”), Polish nudny (“boring”), Slovak nudný (“boring”), Old Church Slavonic ноудити (nuditi) or нѫдити (nǫditi, “to compel”), Hebrew נוּדְנִיק (“nag”). See also English need, and compare needy for the semantics.

Words formed from nudnik

Questions about nudnik

What does nudnik mean?
Nudnik means a person who is very annoying; a pest, a nag, a jerk.
What is nudnik in Tamil?
Nudnik in Tamil is மந்தப்பூச்சி. See Nudnik meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is nudnik?
Nudnik is a noun.
How do you pronounce nudnik?
Nudnik is pronounced /ˈnʊdnɪk/ (UK).
What is the plural of nudnik?
The plural of nudnik is nudniks.

Words near nudnik in the dictionary

  1. nudivirus
  2. nudiviruses
  3. nudle
  4. nudnick
  5. nudnicks
  6. nudnik
  7. nudniks
  8. Nudo
  9. Nudos
  10. nudum pactum
  11. nudy

Source and license

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

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