neat
pronunciation
How to pronounce neat in British English:
UK [niːt]
How to pronounce neat in American English:
US [niːt]
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- Adjective:
- clean or orderly
- showing care in execution
- free from what is tawdry or unbecoming
- free from clumsiness; precisely or deftly executed
- very good
- without water
Word Origin
- neat
- neat: English has two words neat. The older is now virtually obsolete, while the commoner is a comparatively recent introduction. Neat ‘tidy’ [16] was borrowed from French net ‘neat, clean’. This goes back to Latin nitidus ‘elegant, shiny’, a derivative of the verb nītēre ‘shine’. English originally acquired the word in the 14th century as net ‘clean, tidy’ (from which the modern net ‘with deductions’ developed).This had a 16thcentury derivative netty, which may be the source of modern English natty [18]. Neat ‘cow, ox’ [OE] is now encountered only in gastronomic contexts, such as ‘neat’s foot jelly’, and even then is an archaism. It goes back to prehistoric Germanic *nautam, a derivative of a base meaning ‘use’, and hence reflects (like cattle itself) the original notion of cattle as ‘useful property’.=> natty, net
- neat (adj.)
- 1540s, "clean, free from dirt," from Anglo-French neit, Middle French net "clear, pure" (12c.), from Latin nitidus "well-favored, elegant, trim," literally "gleaming," from nitere "to shine," from PIE root *nei- "to shine" (cognates: Middle Irish niam "gleam, splendor," niamda "shining;" Old Irish noib "holy," niab "strength;" Welsh nwyfiant "gleam, splendor"). Meaning "inclined to be tidy" is from 1570s. Of liquor, "straight," c. 1800, from meaning "unadulterated" (of wine), which is first attested 1570s. Informal sense of "very good" first recorded 1934 in American English; variant neato is teenager slang, first recorded 1968. Related: Neatly; neatness.
- neat (n.)
- "ox, bullock, cow," Old English neat "ox, beast, animal," from Proto-Germanic *nautam "thing of value, possession" (cognates: Old Frisian nat, Middle Dutch noot, Old High German noz, Old Norse naut), from PIE root *neud- "to make use of, enjoy."
Example
- 1. For a neat finish , stop the pressure before pulling away .
- 2. The giant boxes inside nigeria 's busiest container port are lined up in neat , ordered rows .
- 3. And here 's the neat parlor trick .
- 4. It is a neat theory , but hard to prove .
- 5. That neat job swap could be portrayed as a triumph for russian democracy .