nobody
Appearance
See also: no body
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English nobody, no-body, no body. By surface analysis, no (“none, not any”, adjective) + body (“one, person, individual”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Pronoun
[edit]nobody
- Not any person; the logical negation of somebody.
- I asked several people, but nobody knew how.
- As nobody who is not blind can have failed to notice, I had my hair cut just yesterday.
Usage notes
[edit]- Nobody has a lower degree of formality than no one, but is still standard and is unremarkable in more formal contexts.
- See more at no one
Synonyms
[edit]Antonyms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]- it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good
- like it's nobody's business
- like nobody else
- like nobody's business
- like nobody's watching
- nobody ever went broke underestimating the good taste of the American people
- nobody ever went broke underestimating the good taste of the American public
- nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people
- nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public
- nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people
- nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public
- nobody's fool
- nobody's perfect
- on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog
- the lights are on but nobody's home
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]not any person; the logical negation of somebody — see no one
Noun
[edit]nobody (plural nobodies)
- Someone who is not important or well-known.
- 1835, Charlotte Brontë, chapter XXVII, in Villette[1]:
- “‘The nobody you once thought me!’ I repeated, and my face grew a little hot; but I would not be angry: of what importance was a school-girl’s crude use of the terms nobody and somebody?”
- Something that has no body or an especially small one.
Derived terms
[edit]- nobody crab, no-body crab (Pycnogonida spp.)
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]unimportant person
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References
[edit]- “nobody”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English compound terms
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
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- English terms with usage examples
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
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- English compound determinatives
- English indefinite pronouns
- English third person pronouns
- en:People