Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Orderly and clean; tidy.
- adj. Orderly and precise in procedure; systematic.
- adj. Marked by ingenuity and skill; adroit: a neat turn of phrase.
- adj. Not diluted or mixed with other substances: neat whiskey.
- adj. Left after all deductions; net: neat profit.
- adj. Slang Wonderful; terrific: That was a neat party.
- n. Archaic A cow or other domestic bovine animal.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Cattle of the bovine genus, as bulls, oxen, and cows: used collectively.
- n. A single bovine animal.
- Being or relating to animals of the ox kind: as, neat cattle.
- Clear; pure; unmixed; undiluted; unadulterated: as, a glass of brandy neat.
- Clear of any extraneous matter; clear of the cask, case, wrapper, etc.; with all deductions made: as, neat weight.
- Free from what is undesirable, offensive, unbecoming, or in bad taste; pleasing; nice.
- Characterized by nicety of appearance, construction, arrangement, etc.; nice; hence, orderly; trim; tidy; often, specifically, clean; as, a neat box; the apartment was always very neat; neat in one's dress.
- Well-shaped or well-proportioned; cleancut: as, a neat foot and ankle.
- Complete in character, skill, etc.; exact; finished; adroit; clever; skilful: applied to persons or things.
- Spruce; finical; over-nice.
- A commendatory word, used somewhat vaguely.
- Synonyms Clean, cleanly, unsoiled.
- Neatly.
Wiktionary
- n. archaic A bull or cow.
- n. archaic Cattle collectively.
- adj. Clean, tidy; free from dirt or impurities.
- adj. Free from contaminants; unadulterated, undiluted. Particularly of liquor and cocktails; see usage below.
- adj. chemistry Conditions with a liquid reagent or gas performed with no standard solvent or cosolvent
- adj. archaic With all deductions or allowances made; net.
- adj. Having a simple elegance or style; clean, trim, tidy, tasteful.
- adj. Well-executed or delivered; clever, skilful, precise.
- adj. colloquial Good, excellent, desirable.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) Cattle of the genus Bos, as distinguished from horses, sheep, and goats; an animal of the genus Bos
- adj. Of or pertaining to the genus Bos, or to cattle of that genus.
- adj. Free from that which soils, defiles, or disorders; clean; cleanly; tidy.
- adj. Free from what is unbecoming, inappropriate, or tawdry; simple and becoming; pleasing with simplicity; tasteful; chaste.
- adj. (Chem.) Free from admixture or adulteration; good of its kind. Pure; undiluted.
- adj. Excellent in character, skill, or performance, etc.; nice; finished; adroit.
- adj. With all deductions or allowances made; net. [In this sense usually written
net . See Net, a., 3.]
WordNet 3.0
- adj. free from what is tawdry or unbecoming
- adj. without water
- adj. clean or organized
- adj. showing care in execution
- adj. free from clumsiness; precisely or deftly executed
- adj. very good
Etymologies
- From Middle English *nete, net, nette (> Modern net "good, clean"), from Anglo-Norman neit ("good, desireable, clean"), apparently a conflation of Old French net, nette ("clean, clear, pure"; from Latin nitidus ("gleaming"), from niteō ("I shine")) and Middle English *neit, nait ("in good order, trim, useful, dextrous"; from Old Norse neytr ("fit for use, in good order"), from Proto-Germanic *nautiz (“useful, helpful”)). See nait. (Wiktionary)
- Anglo-Norman neit, clear, pure, variant of Old French net, from Latin nitidus, elegant, gleaming, from nitēre, to shine.Middle English net, from Old English nēat. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I. ii.123 (266,6) [We must be neat] Leontes, seeing his son's nose smutched, cries, _We must be neat_, then recollecting that _neat_ is the term for _horned_ cattle, he says, _not neat, but cleanly_.”
“He did it as a riff off the term "hi fi", which was what you called your neat-o, keen-o stereo system in the 1950s?”
“Damn, was I imagining things, or did Gilberto really use the word neat?”
“I had to pay five dollars for hittin 'the chap (they said it was salt and buttery), an' that's what I call a neat, genteel luxury.”
“What's kind of neat is that Torquere Press always has one of their established authors review the book, so I have my first review already, technically.”
“It's pretty neat from the old cars, to the old suits, the write-ups, the videos.”
“Newer: « Matrix Trilogy comes in neat toy Nebuchadnezzar”
Zombie Defense weapons for LEGO minifigs | My[confined]Space
“Older: Matrix Trilogy comes in neat toy Nebuchadnezzar »”
“Matrix Trilogy comes in neat toy Nebuchadnezzar - September 4, 2009 added by deleted_user | Images mcs+ to rate”
Matrix Trilogy comes in neat toy Nebuchadnezzar | My[confined]Space
“Matrix Trilogy comes in neat toy Nebuchadnezzar | My [confined] Space”
Matrix Trilogy comes in neat toy Nebuchadnezzar | My[confined]Space
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘neat’.
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Cattle
cattle, cow, beef, steer, heifer, calf, bull, cattle call, Black Angus, Hereford, Holstein, Dwarf Lulu and 402 more...
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UK Usage - Find US Equivalent
All these terms have a (different) American English equivalent. Wonder if you can identify them?
abridgement (abri..., accoutrement, accoutre, acknowledgement (..., opposite, advert, adaptor, adapter, sticking plaster, advertise, adviser (advisor ..., adze, aesthete and 1196 more...
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cotton
Cotton is a blended word with rich flavor. One meaning root is from the semitic root qtn that means to 'become thin or fine'; and the other meaning is from Welsh cytun or cytun that means to ' agr...
cotton, hosanna, Seneca, crab, hock, bow, bark, carousal, limber, rash, beguine, kennel and 26 more...
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Neat
neaten, beneath, underneath, neatherd, delineate, lineation, neath, neat's-foot oil, cuneate, uneaten, enneatic, neatnik and 20 more...
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That's nice.
nice, kind, agreeable, good-natured, pleasing, kind-hearted, sweet, simnel, gracious, percaline, manzanilla, kincob and 8 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
grabbable, retuiteando, leaving, fantastic, absolutely, kurwa, hella, ridic, underpass, hate, interlude, plush and 2369 more... -
Apples to Apples: Green Cards
A complete list of the green cards (adjectives) from the popular word game.
absurd, addictive, adorable, aged, American, ancient, animated, annoying, appetizing, arrogant, awesome, awkward and 237 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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The Jumblies
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to...sieve, winter, morn, stormy, round, drowned, cried, aloud, button, fig, sea, far and 113 more...
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The History of Cool
Words that mean "cool" around the world and through the ages.
cool, awesome, wild, stylin', groovy, neat, nifty, swell, great, tubular, radical, bitchin' and 188 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
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soul mate
soul mate, soul mates, soul, portishead, wounded, death, depression, hurt, the cure, pain, longing, rat and 424 more...
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TT3 Lesson 35
aircraft, aboard, female, not at all, complex, male, would rather, could do with, chilly, suit yourself, smuggle, joke and 38 more...
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In Chess, The Pawns Go First
These are words that I really like at the moment.
paucity, copacetic, truculent, virago, neat, lore, oscillatory, awesome, sycophant, avatar, invariably
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I think I am.
honest, capable, intelligent, witty, skeptical, content, sonorous, beautiful, responsible, fascinating, scrupulous, precocious and 17 more...
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banned
alot, woulda, really, like, um, random, okay, totally, sort of, in my mind, would of, sort've and 13 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for neat.
fbharjo A commendatory word, used somewhat vaguely. - Century Dictionary Aug 22, 2012
duckbill "dried neat's tongues." Apr 22, 2011
oroboros Mighty keen, Eugene! May 22, 2007
valse Heh...I wonder if someone's made a list for funnily innocuous words from the 50's like this one? May 22, 2007
uselessness Gee willikers, this word is swell! May 21, 2007