neither

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English

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WOTD – 11 May 2010
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Etymology

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Alteration (after either) of nauther, from Middle English nawther, noþer, naðer (whence also Modern nor), from Old English nāwþer, contraction of nāhwæþer, corresponding to no + whether. Compare Latin neuter (“neither”). By surface analysis, not +‎ either.

Pronunciation

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Determiner

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neither

  1. Not one of two; not either; not one of the other.
    Neither definition seems correct.
    • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
      She was neither learned nor intelligent, but she contrived to dress both herself and her daughter out of a meagre jointure, supplying with her clever fingers what her purse could not buy; […] .
  2. Not either (used with nor).
    Neither you nor I likes it.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Pronoun

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neither

  1. Not either one of two.
    I’ve tried on both shirts, but neither fits properly.

Usage notes

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  • According to traditional grammar, neither should always be construed as a singular (as in the example above). In practice, however, plural construction is often met with, especially when a specification with of follows: Neither of these shirts is / are clean.

Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Adverb

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neither (not comparable)

  1. Similarly not.
    Just as you would not correct it, neither would I.
    Neither can she stop him, nor can he stop her.
    Neither now, nor ever will he forsake his mother.
    • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist‎[1], volume 407, number 8841, page 68:
      The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them […] is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.

Usage notes

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  • Neither is used to mean none of two or more. Although some suggest that using the word neither with more than two items is incorrect, it has been commonly used to refer to more than two subjects since the 17th century.
  • Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. - inscription on James A. Farley Post Office Building, New York
A user suggests that this English entry be cleaned up, giving the reason: “This looks bad. In sentence 3 the pronoun has been mixed into this. And for the rest, what does it even try to say? What "number of the verb"?”.
Please see the discussion on Requests for cleanup(+) or the talk page for more information and remove this template after the problem has been dealt with.
  • There is considerable variation in the number of the verb employed with this construction.
  • Examples:
  • “That woman was neither a collector nor an art critic, but she understood the meaning I meant to give that work.” — Marcelle Ferron
  • “Has anyone ever loved you so much that they tried to kill you, or perhaps sucked you down into a hole so that you had to kill them to get away? Yeah, me neither.” — Maynard James Keenan
  • “You can make a lot of money in this game. Just ask my ex-wives. Both of them are so rich that neither of their husbands work.” — Lee Trevino
  • “As if it were gold and could be neither good nor bad nor worth more nor worth less but must always be worth the same no matter what.” — Alex Miller
  • “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!” — Rudyard Kipling
  • “Neither you, Simon, nor the fifty thousand, nor the Romans, nor the Jews, nor Judas, nor the twelve, nor the priests, nor the scribes, nor doomed Jerusalem itself understand what power is, understand what glory is, understand at all.” — Jesus Christ Superstar

Translations

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Anagrams

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