nine

[nahyn] /naɪn/
noun
1.
a cardinal number, eight plus one.
2.
a symbol for this number, as 9 or IX.
3.
a set of this many persons or things.
4.
a baseball team.
5.
a playing card with nine pips.
6.
the Nine, the Muses.
adjective
7.
amounting to nine in number.
Idioms
8.
dressed to the nines, looking one's best; dressed smartly, splendidly, etc.:
All the girls were dressed to the nines for the party.
Origin
before 900; Middle English; Old English nigan, nigon, cognate with Dutch negen, akin to German neun, Old Norse nīu, Gothic niun, Latin novem, Greek ennéa, Sanskrit náva
Examples from the web for nine
  • Great to eat or drink as juice, and the fruit lasts eight to nine months on the tree.
  • Each song is composed of anywhere from two to nine themes, and the themes are sung in a specific order.
  • Burrowing owls are playful, nine-inch-tall birds with bold, lemon-colored eyes.
  • Olfactory sense improved in some of the mice over a nine-day period.
  • Seven of its subsidiaries there lost money in the first nine months of last year.
  • In all, nine-tenths of venture capital committed during the bubble years may have been squandered.
  • In both cases participants used the same one-to-nine scale employed in the first experiment.
  • When the soldiers reached the camp, nine of the hostages were already dead.
  • Three of the nine-strong monetary-policy committee voted for an increase this month.
  • Basic education has been reduced to nine years, and university from four years to two.
British Dictionary definitions for nine

nine

/naɪn/
noun
1.
the cardinal number that is the sum of one and eight See also number (sense 1)
2.
a numeral, 9, IX, etc, representing this number
3.
something representing, represented by, or consisting of nine units, such as a playing card with nine symbols on it
4.
Also nine o'clock. nine hours after noon or midnight: the play starts at nine
5.
(informal) dressed to the nines, dressed up to the nines, elaborately dressed
6.
999, (in Britain) the telephone number of the emergency services
7.
nine to five, normal office hours: he works nine to five, a nine-to-five job
determiner
8.
  1. amounting to nine: nine days
  2. (as pronoun): nine of the ten are ready
related
prefix nona-
Word Origin
Old English nigon; related to Gothic niun, Latin novem
Word Origin and History for nine
n.

Old English nigen, from Proto-Germanic *niwun (cf. Old Saxon nigun, Old Frisian niugun, Old Norse niu, Swedish nio, Middle Dutch neghen, Dutch negen, Old High German niun, German neun, Gothic niun "nine"), from PIE newn "nine" (cf. Sanskrit nava, Avestan nava, Greek ennea, Albanian nende, Latin novem (with change of -n- to -m- by analogy of septem, decem), Lithuanian devnyi, Old Church Slavonic deveti (the Balto-Slavic forms by dissimilation of -n- to -d-), Old Irish noin, Welsh naw).

Nine to five "the average workday" is attested from 1935. Nine days has been proverbial since 14c. for the time which a wonder or novelty holds attention.

Slang definitions & phrases for nine

nine

noun

A nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol: There was a fight. I saw a man running with a nine/ People seeking guns for personal combat want reliable stopping power, revolvers or semiautomatic pistols known as ''nines'' (1990s+)

verb

: Motherfucker tried to stiff me on a buy and I nined him right there


Related Abbreviations for nine

NINE

National Institute of Nutritional Education
Idioms and Phrases with nine

nine

see: