Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In South Africa, a neck or saddle between two hills.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Africa would have been called a nek, and dived down along a white road leading into a broad forest track, sunlit now, but bordered on either side by the twilight of towering pines and firs through which the sunlight filtered only in little flakes, which lay upon the last year's leaves and cones, somewhat as an electric light might have fallen on a monkish manuscript of the thirteenth century.

    The World Peril of 1910 George Chetwynd Griffith 1881

  • Agreement, of attributive adj., 17, (with acc.) 24; of predicate noun and adj., 21; of adj. with two or more nouns, 17; of adj. with words connected by "nek", 31; of adj. with pronouns, 33; of participle,

    A Complete Grammar of Esperanto Ivy Kellerman Reed 1922

  • In the expression "neither ... nor ...", the conjunction "nek" is used for both words.

    A Complete Grammar of Esperanto Ivy Kellerman Reed 1922

  • (The second "nek" connects the pronouns, the first being introductory and adverbial.)

    A Complete Grammar of Esperanto Ivy Kellerman Reed 1922

  • Since an adjective modifier of two or more words connected by "nek" must necessarily modify them separately, the adjective remains in the singular number:

    A Complete Grammar of Esperanto Ivy Kellerman Reed 1922

  • The place was held only by three dismounted squadrons of Imperial Light Horse, but the 1st K.R.R. (60th) were in support in a large sangar about three-quarters of a mile along the same ridge, separated from Waggon Hill proper by the low "nek" where the two howitzers used to stand.

    Ladysmith The Diary of a Siege Henry W. Nevinson 1900

  • The Devons, edging a little to the right in their charge, got some cover from a low wall near the "nek" just quitted by the Boers.

    Ladysmith The Diary of a Siege Henry W. Nevinson 1900

  • Keeping well to the left of the "nek," between the extremity held by the Light

    Ladysmith The Diary of a Siege Henry W. Nevinson 1900

  • But the Dutch had reached the summit, and were enfilading the "nek" and the whole extremity of the hill from our left.

    Ladysmith The Diary of a Siege Henry W. Nevinson 1900

  • It's got very noble intentions, the kind of nek khayalat the studio crowd at KBC claps to, but it never quite shrugs off the bleak blanket it wraps around itself early on.

    The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) - Frontpage 2010

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