Noun: neat
| Singular | neat |
| Plural | neats; neat |
Sample Sentences
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Who both by his calfe, & his lambe wil be known, / may well kill a neate and a shepe of his owne. / And he that wil reare up a pyg in his house, / hath cheaper his bacon, and sweter his souse. [1557 February 13 (Gregorian calendar), Thomas Tusser, “Januarye”, in A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, London: […] Richard Tottel, →OCLC; republished London: […] Robert Triphook, […], and William Sancho, […], 1810, →OCLC, stanza 54:]
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Thanks, i'faith; for silence is only commendable / In a neat's tongue dried. [c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:]
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[…] he’s a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat’s leather. [1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:]
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Sturdy he was, and no less able, / Then Hercules to clense a Stable; / As great: Drover, and as great / A Critick too, in Hog or Neat, [1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 51:]
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[…] I sat down by this water in the shade to dine, on a neat’s tongue I had got from good Mrs. Price […] [1756, Thomas Amory, chapter 28, in The Life of John Buncle, Esq., London: J. Noon, page 165:]
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Five were proper slender youths, the eldest of whom had not yet beard full grown, black-browed and great of jaw; the sixth, huge as a neat, topped them by half a head. [1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 17:]
Nouns inflected like neat
whiting,
Munduruku,
Mundurucu,
sempai,
senpai,
saseng,
satang,
cunjevoi,
sansei,
Namboothiri,
somoni,
Sentinelese,
siopao,
shogun,
shinza,
Barakzai,
Chippewyan,
Diaguita,
shōgun,
thermal horsepower, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English nete, net, nette, from Anglo-Norman neit (“good, desirable, clean”), a variant of Old French net, nette (“clean, clear, pure”), from Latin nitidus (“gleaming”), derived from nitēre (“to shine”). Doublet of net and nitid. Cognate with German nett (“nice, kind”). Compare also nait. See: Middle English Nouns '
nete', Latin Nouns '
nitidus'.
Verbs referencing "neat"
Icelandic Nouns
naut, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns
naut.