nine
pronunciation
How to pronounce nine in British English:
UK [naɪn]
How to pronounce nine in American English:
US [naɪn]
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- Noun:
- the cardinal number that is the sum of eight and one
- a team of professional baseball players who play and travel together
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- Adjective:
- denoting a quantity consisting of one more than eight and one less than ten
Word Origin
- nine
- nine: [OE] Nine is part of a general Indo- European family of ‘9’-words, which trace their ancestry back to a prehistoric *newn or *enewn. Among the descendants of these are Greek ennéa, Latin novem (source of English November), Irish nóin, Lithuanian devynì, and Russian devyat’. Its Germanic forms *niwun or *nigun have differentiated into German neun, Dutch negen, Swedish nio, Danish ni, and English nine. Noon is so called from being originally the ‘ninth’ hour.=> noon
- nine (n.)
- Old English nigen, from Proto-Germanic *niwun (cognates: Old Saxon nigun, Old Frisian niugun, Old Norse niu, Swedish nio, Middle Dutch neghen, Dutch negen, Old High German niun, German neun, Gothic niun "nine"), from PIE newn "nine" (cognates: Sanskrit nava, Avestan nava, Greek ennea, Albanian nende, Latin novem (with change of -n- to -m- by analogy of septem, decem), Lithuanian devnyi, Old Church Slavonic deveti (the Balto-Slavic forms by dissimilation of -n- to -d-), Old Irish noin, Welsh naw). Nine to five "the average workday" is attested from 1935. Nine days has been proverbial since 14c. for the time which a wonder or novelty holds attention.
Example
- 1. Nine years later he married his wife maggie .
- 2. She has been held without charge for nine months .
- 3. Nine times out of ten it points the wrong way .
- 4. In second place was zhang yin of nine dragons paper , the recycling company which also listed recently .
- 5. Japan 's delegation will number nine .