neigh

UK/neɪ̯/US/neɪ̯/

verbB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,508 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: neighing

To neigh is to make the long high call a horse makes. The horse neighed, a loud neigh, neigh in the field.

It is one of a family of horse sounds with their own names: a whinny is softer, a nicker is a low greeting, and a snort is through the nose. The word imitates the sound, and it has done so since Old English.

Definitions of neigh

1verbneighTo make the long high call a horse makes.B2+
“The horses neighed loudly when the barn caught fire.”

neigh is a sound.

Where it comes from

Old English hnaegan imitates the sound, from a Germanic root of the same kind.

Proto-Germanic
*hnajjaną — to neigh
Proto-West Germanic
*hnaijan
Old English
hnǣġan
Middle English
neyen
English, today
neigh

Middle English neyen, from Old English hnǣġan, from Proto-West Germanic hnaijan, from Proto-Germanic hnajjaną (“to neigh”). Cognate with dialectal Dutch neien, Middle Low German neigen, Swedish gnägga, Icelandic hneggja.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

neigh in the wild

During the war, Captain Alejandro Lizaso Eizmendi added some verses. 1 Irrintzi, literally "neigh", is a high-pitched scream used in celebrations and to call others at long distances.
Eusko Gudariak
Blaze could say 11 different things like, "How about some hay?"; he could also whinny and neigh.
Blaze (toy)
A neigh is the sound made by horses, horse hybrids, and other equines.
Neigh (disambiguation)
A neigh () is the sound made by horses, horse hybrids such as the hinny, and other equines, such as the zebra.
Neigh
The main function of neighing is to alert other equines to its presence in the absence of visual communication.
Neigh

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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