Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adv. Used to express refusal, denial, disbelief, emphasis, or disagreement: No, I'm not going. No, you're wrong.
- adv. Not at all; not by any degree. Often used with the comparative: no better; no more.
- adv. Not: whether or no.
- n. A negative response; a denial or refusal: The proposal produced only noes.
- n. A negative vote or voter.
- interj. Used to express strong refusal, doubt, or disbelief.
- adj. Not any; not one; not a: No cookies are left.
- adj. Not at all; not close to being: He is no child.
- adj. Hardly any: got there in no time flat. See Usage Note at nor1.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not ever; never; not at all; not.
- Not so; nay; not: with implied, but not expressed, repetition of a preceding (or succeeding) statement denied or question answered in the negative, with change of person if necessary. This is practically equivalent to a complete sentence with its affirmation denied: as, “Was he here yesterday?” “No”—that is, “he was not here yesterday.” It is therefore the negative categorematic particle, equivalent to nay, and opposed to yes or yea, the affirmative categorematic particles. The fine distinction alleged to have formerly existed between no and nay, according to which no answered questions negatively framed, as, “Will he not come? No,” while nay answered those not including a negative, as, “Will he come? Nay,” is hardly borne out hy the records. No and nay are ultimately identical in origin, and their differences of use (nay being restricted in use and no now largely superseded by not) are accidental.
- In answer to a request (expressed or anticipated): in this use often repeated for emphasis: as, no, no, do not ask me.
- Used parenthetically in iteration of another negative.
- Used continuatively, in iteration and amplification of a previous negative, expressed or understood.
- Not: used after or, at the end of a sentence or clause, as the representative of an independent negative sentence or clause, the first clause being often introduced by whether or if: as, he is uncertain whether to accept it or no; he may take it or no, as he pleases.
- See no. adverb
- n. A denial; the word of denial.
- n. A negative vote, or a person who votes in the negative: as, the noes have it.
- Nor.
- Not any; not one; none.
- No is used, like not in similar constructions, with a word of depreciation or diminution, to denote a certain degree of excellence, small or great according to circumstances.
- Not in any degree; not at all; in no respect; not: used with a comparative: as, no longer: no shorter; no more; wo less.
- An abbreviation of the Latin numero, ablative of numerus, number: used for English number, and so as a plural Nos.: as, No. 2, and Nos, 9 and 10.
- n. In Japan, a sort of dignified operatic performance consisting of music and dancing, with recitation. The carved masks worn by the performers indicate the characters portrayed.
- n. An abbreviation
- n. of northern
- n. In chem., the symbol for noriurn.
- An abbreviation of not otherwise provided for.
Wiktionary
- Not any.
- Not any possibility or allowance of (doing something).
- Not (a); not properly, not really; not fully.
- adv. Not.
- adv. Not any, not at all.
- prep. Used to show disagreement or negation.
- prep. Used to show agreement with a negative question.
- n. A negating expression; an answer that shows disagreement or disapproval.
- n. A vote not in favor, or opposing a proposition.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not any; not one; none; ; -- often used as a quantifier.
- adv. Nay; not; not at all; not in any respect or degree; -- a word expressing negation, denial, or refusal. Before or after another negative,
no is emphatic. - n. A refusal by use of the word
no ; a denial. - n. A negative vote; one who votes in the negative
- n. abbreviated Number; -- the number designating place in an ordered sequence.
WordNet 3.0
- adv. referring to the degree to which a certain quality is present
- adj. quantifier; used with either mass nouns or plural count nouns for indicating a complete or almost complete lack or zero quantity of
- adv. used to express refusal or denial or disagreement etc or especially to emphasize a negative statement
- adv. not in any degree or manner; not at all
- n. a radioactive transuranic element synthesized by bombarding curium with carbon ions; 7 isotopes are known
- n. a negative
- n. the number designating place in an ordered sequence
Etymologies
- From Middle English no, na, from Old English nā, nō ("never"), from Proto-Germanic *nai (“never”), *nē (“not”), from Proto-Indo-European *ne, *nē, *nēy (negative particle), equivalent to Old English ne ("not") + ā, ō ("ever, always"). Cognate with West Frisian né ("no"), West Frisian nea ("never"), Dutch nee ("no"), Low German nee ("no"), German nie ("never"), Icelandic nei ("no"). More at nay. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English nā : ne, not; see ne in Indo-European roots + ā, ever; see aiw- in Indo-European roots.Middle English, variant of non, from Old English nān, none : ne, not; see ne in Indo-European roots + ān, one; see one. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In the words of LaBeouf, he should have just said…..no no no no No No No NO NO NO No no.”
EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Laboooooof admits Transformers 2 and Indy 4 sucked
“I had a man rear end my car..no insurance, no driver's license and no green card!”
“DrDon, as you no doubt know, the time it takes current immigrants to learn english is no different than it was at the beginning of the 20th century. and we got all kinds of funny signs in NYC -- ¡no hay problema, chico!”
Huckabee: I'm Against Illegal Immigration, But I'm Not A Lunatic About It
“Promoted to Headline (H2) on 3/30/09: The U.S. has 'no moral standing' to criticize Iran: Zunes yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = 'The U.S. has \'no moral standing\' to criticize Iran: Zunes '; yahooBuzzArticleSummary =' Article: An interview with the Middle East analyst and expert, Prof. Stephen Zunes, on the U.S. double standards against Iran\'s nuclear dossier, Palestinians\ 'plight and regional conflicts.”
“I'm no fan of public education as it's currently implemented-off the top of my head, Milton Friedman's voucher proposal in Capitalism and Freedom seems infinitely preferrable to how we do things now-but if the choice is what we have now or *no* public education system then I favor what we have now.”
“May 18, 2009 at 7:07 am no no……..no water boarding.”
It was horrible - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“There would be no profanity..no insults...and no interesting reading here.”
“No brakes, no hands,..no bars and no fork would be even more tuff. a lot of them look like hairy colourful clowns as is, with their Howard the Duck eyeglasses and oversized flat brimmed hats and all.”
“I always found the Japanese oriented no offensive pun intended..no seriously Wolverine stories to be some of the best.”
Wolverine Sequel in the Works | Major Spoilers - Comic Book Reviews and News
“So not only is there _no_ evidence to support the Republicans 'position, there's no real upside to it, unless you're in the oil business or oil services business.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘no’.
-
Tati's list
comfortable
comfortable, avocado, avoid, beautiful, beer, bear, brief, breath, bug, bias, burn, case and 97 more...
-
Public List: Two by Fives
This is an experiment in public lists--something I've been thinking about for some time. The goal is to create a collection of short, powerful, evocative words.
This is an open list. A...icy, howl, hymn, thorn, fire, vile, mist, blunt, scum, dark, shot, gleam and 221 more...
-
avfordomd's list
lexicon
copacetic, amiable, philanthropic, misanthropic, gregarious, vehement, parcel, congregate, paucity, passel, multitudinous, pulchritudinous and 98 more...
-
emordnilap
reviled, loot, no, ta, rat, part, pit, stop, spat, ten, mad, mart and 108 more...
-
EN - Glasgow stop list
Words to be replaced by a paragraph mark if you are after terms and MWEs.
about, above, across, after, afterwards, again, against, all, almost, alone, along, already and 291 more...
-
Awesome Pronunciations
BRING IT ON!!!!!
!, !!, !!!, !!!!, !!!!!, peter piper, licet mihi venera..., aliquid in aere e..., SHAZAM!, dark-sided, vegan quiche...ev..., konstantinopolita... and 113 more...
-
FUN - gestures
There are thousands of sign languages and possibly millions of gestures in human communication but not all of them have a name. Some are understood everywhere, some are understood everywhere but di...
okay sign, abhayamudra, apology, beckoning sign, Bellamy salute, benediction, blessing, blah-blah, "check, please” sign, clenched fist, Chinese number ge..., Clinton thumb and 360 more...
-
The Pain of Texting
Words that are a pain in the ass to type in on a numerical keypad on a cell phone because they have consecutive letters that share the same button:
2 - ABC
3 - DEF
4 - GHI...defcon, hi, no, attitude, xylophone, on, monday, monkey, mono, dig, back, babble and 212 more...
-
Periodic Table of Cake
I should have known better, but once I got started on this, I realized it’s basically the same thing as Ruzuzu’s list “Let them eat cake”, with less cake.
cheese, ague, almond, alum, pan, ash, beef, tea, Baddeley, daikon, yellow, zebra and 44 more...
-
everything
everythin?
a, i, aardvark, abdominals, any, anti-, ash, actuall, actually, add, abs, ass and 43 more...
-
hmm
i've decided i love these words
ludicrous, awesome, psyched, supercilious, superlicious, clownish, as a phrase "bomb", hi, almost, hots, no, cozy
-
WORDNIK - words found in "Wordnik"
kino, inro, indow, in, ikon, id, drown, drink, down, ink, dork, dor and 54 more...
-
shaking
i want so despera..., to be in love, sometimes, i want to believe..., i know im not eve..., and he thinks he ..., but i want to be ..., and im tired of d..., he says things bu..., i know hes a liar, im not stupid, but i am lonely and 14 more...
-
See Usage Note at
Being a list of words with the phrase "See Usage Note at" in their definitions. Most of these come from the American Heritage Dictionary.
upon, seldom, among, compliment, thus, further, predicament, latter, repel, inflammable, gentleman, adage and 12 more...
-
Answers
Life is full of tests and challenges--with our busy schedules, it can be hard to find the time to study. Are you a student bombarded by a pop quiz? A witness testifying about that industrial accide...
true, false, All of the above., None of the above., D, C, B, A, 42, Not to my recolle..., children's laughter, a dentist's drill and 26 more...
-
Resident Pipsiculturalist Makes Huge ...
See comments on pipsiculture and homosexuality, which have nothing to do with each other except that I read comments on them at around the same time on the same day.
See also the list ...heterosexuality, homosexuality, agriculture, argumentative, that, article, thus, make, do, the, interesting, like and 106 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for no.

sakhalinskii Means no. It does not mean yes, or maybe. Jul 30, 2008
oroboros Like some baseball caps: on backwards. NYT crossword answer. Mar 26, 2008
oroboros No. Chemical element symbol for Nobelium. Dec 15, 2007
slumry That is what shoo means here, too--my father used to shoo the barn cats regularly. Jun 27, 2007
muamor Same thing as far as I'm concerned. But remember, I'm a tourist. ;o} Jun 27, 2007
slumry Shoo as in scram? Jun 27, 2007
muamor Finland. Shoo, negativity, shoo. *waving her hands frantically* Jun 27, 2007
uselessness What kind of negative place do you live in? :-) Jun 27, 2007
muamor 'no' means well as in: Well, what do you mean then? Jun 27, 2007