nay
adverbeinterjectionnomverbeadjectifcourant dans les dialogues
- //neɪ//
A vote against.
adverbe
- 1
archaïqueNo.
Duke Magnus, Duke Magnus, plight thee to me, I pray you still so freely; Say me not nay, but yes, yes!
- 2
archaïqueIntroducing a statement, without direct negation.
Nay, what are you smiling at so damnably?
- 3
archaïqueOr rather, or should I say; moreover (introducing a stronger and more appropriate expression than the preceding one).
His face was dirty, nay, filthy.
[…] And proved not only horse, but cows, / Nay pigs, were of the elder house: / For beasts, when man was but a piece / Of earth himself, did th' earth possess.
And even in our wildest and most wandering reveries, nay in our very dreams, we shall find, if we reflect, that the imagination ran not altogether at adventures,
And all rejected: Has this course been used? Arch. We grant it has not; but— King. Nay, give me leave,— I urge, from your own grant, it has not been. If then, in process of a petty sum, Both parties having not been fully heard,[…]
Étymologie
From Middle English nai, nei, from Old Norse nei (“no”), contraction of ne (“not”) + ei (“ever”), itself from Proto-Germanic *nai (“never”), *nē (“not”). More at no. The verb is from Middle English nayen (“to refuse, deny, gainsay”), from the interjection and adverb above.
interjection
- 1
archaïqueNo.
nom
- 1
A vote against.
I vote nay, even though the motion is popular, because I would rather be right than popular.
Recently senators could fax in their yeas or nays to the committee chairman.
- 2
A person who voted against.
The vote is 4 in favor and 20 opposed; the nays have it.
- 3
archaïqueA denial; a refusal.
And my povert' no wight nor can nor may Make comparison, it is no nay.
verbe
- 1
obsolèteTo refuse.
the cardinall then being bishop of Winchester, tooke vpon him the state of cardinall, which was naied and denaied him, by the king of most noble memorie
adjectif
- 1
obsolèteNary; not any
'Tis easy to do this experiment, though nay substance will do: we shall need a special one.
Nay man could have come out of such a situation unscathed.
nay other Nations [beyond the Native American ones] seem to have continued in a State of Barbarism, as long as they continued to exercise one only of these Arts [Metallurgy and Agriculture] without the other;
His house was so closely beset by the populace, day and night, that scarcely nay person ventured to visit him; and he was afraid that his chapel would be burned to the ground.
Formes
- pluriel
- nays
- passé
- nayed
- participe passé
- nayed
- participe présent
- naying
- 3ᵉ personne du singulier
- nays