nary

adjective

ˈner-ē

dialect

: not any : not one

I must have it back as I have nary other copy—

Flannery O'Connor

Phrases

nary a or nary an

: not a single

survived the accident with nary a scratch

Did you know?

Nary, most often used in the phrase "nary a" to mean "not a single," is an 18th-century alteration of the adjectival phrase "ne'er a," in which ne'er is a contraction of never. That contraction dates to the 13th century, and the word it abbreviates is even older: never can be traced back to Old English nǣfre, a combination of ne ("not" or "no") and ǣfre ("ever"). Old English ne also combined with ā ("always") to give us nā, the Old English ancestor of our no. Ā, from the Latin aevum ("age" or "lifetime") and Greek aiōn ("age"), is related to the English adverb aye, meaning "always, continually, or ever." This aye (pronounced to rhyme with say) is unrelated to the more familiar aye (pronounced to rhyme with sigh) used as a synonym of yes.

Examples of nary in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

These examples are automatically compiled from online sources to illustrate current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

More than 75,000 people attended, and there was nary a riot vibe to be found. —

Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 31 Oct. 2024 Instead, the second episode of 9-1-1’s eighth season — the Empire Strikes Back chapter of the bee-nado — has nary a bee in sight. —

Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 3 Oct. 2024 But there was nary a whisper when Singapore signed an agreement regarding greater defense and security cooperation with the United States in 2005 or when the 1990 MOU was renewed in 2019. —

Bilahari Kausikan, Foreign Affairs, 16 Feb. 2021 In contrast to most movies about serial killers, this one offers nary a glimpse of violence, let alone any wallowing in sadism. —

Dennis Harvey, Variety, 6 Sep. 2024 See all Example Sentences for nary