nay

«nay» in Mova's early modern english dictionary: no; rather — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

kind

archaic word

modern equivalent

no; rather

part of speech

adverb and interjection

meaning for a pupil

A word for "no", or a word that corrects what has just been said ("rather"). tree →

how it differs from today

Old-fashioned; today we say "no" and "not", and "nay" is only heard in old or formal speech.

examples

• And He said: 'Nay; but thou didst laugh.' (Torah GEN.18.15, JPS 1917) tree →
• “Nay,” purred Bagheera, “that may not be. (The Jungle Book) tree →
• And they said unto him: 'Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. (Torah GEN.42.10, JPS 1917) tree →

primary record

nay

tests

manual 10.2; corpora 124 (Torah 9, tales 115, Sefer Yetzirah 0); EWT 0; ratio 14.0 (Torah alone 21.0); Wiktionary archaic (first sense)

In the corpora

• And He said: 'Nay; but thou didst laugh.'
• And they said unto him: 'Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come.
• And he said unto them: 'Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.'
• And the people said unto Joshua: 'Nay; but we will serve the LORD.'
• Nay, my sons; for it is no good report which I hear the LORD'S people do spread abroad.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «nay» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.