nickname
pronunciation
How to pronounce nickname in British English:
UK [ˈnɪkneɪm]
How to pronounce nickname in American English:
US [ˈnɪkneɪm]
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- Noun:
- a familiar name for a person (often a shortened version of a person's given name)
- a descriptive name for a place or thing
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- Verb:
- give a nickname to
Word Origin
- nickname
- nickname: [14] A nickname is etymologically an ‘additional name’. The word was originally ekename, whose eke ‘addition’ was a derivative of the verb eke (as in ‘eke out’). But by the 15th century an ekename was becoming misinterpreted as a nekename – hence nickname (the same process produced newt [15] from ewt, ancestor of modern English eft ‘newt’, and the reverse happened to adder, apron, and umpire).=> eke
- nickname (n.)
- mid-15c., misdivision of ekename (c. 1300), an eke name, literally "an additional name," from Old English eaca "an increase," related to eacian "to increase" (cognate with Old Norse auknafn, Swedish öknamn, Danish ögenavn; see eke; also see N). As a verb from 1530s. Related: Nicknamed; nicknaming.
Example
- 1. These events earned him the nickname the king of the webmasters .
- 2. It was the nickname a boy had given me .
- 3. He declined to comment on the infidelity phone nickname .
- 4. In the 18th century , edinburgh 's fine architecture and its enlightenment role earned it the nickname " athens of the north " .
- 5. Bin laden 's nickname among some cia hunters is " elvis " because there have been so many false sightings of him .