Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A newt in its juvenile terrestrial stage, especially the reddish-orange form of the North American species Notophthalmus viridescens.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A newt; any small lizard.
  • After; again; afterward; soon.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A European lizard of the genus Seps.
  • noun A salamander, esp. the European smooth newt (Triton punctatus).
  • adverb obsolete Again; afterwards; soon; quickly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A newt, especially the European smooth newt (Triton punctatus).
  • adverb obsolete again; afterwards

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a newt in its terrestrial stage of development

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English evete, from Old English efeta.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English efeta

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English eft, from Proto-Germanic *aftiz. Compare after, aft.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "Come away, children,"said the otter in disgust, "it is not worth eating after all. It is only a nasty eft, which nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in the pond."

    from Water Babies, Charles Kingsley, 1937

    January 28, 2008

  • I like 'smooth newt' with its connotation of having gone to the right kind of finishing school.

    May 17, 2018

  • Smooth Newts of Oxbridge

    May 17, 2018