no

UK/nəʊ/

exclamationA14 meanings One of the most common words in English · #2 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: nos

No is the word you say to refuse or to disagree. Someone offers you a lift and you say no, thanks: a shake of the head, a hand held up, a firm no at the door.

No also means not any, and it sits straight in front of a noun with no article: no milk in the fridge, no time, no idea, no parking. Put it before a comparative and it means not at all — no better, no later than Friday, no more than ten pounds. It is not the same word as not: you say there is no bread, and there is not any bread, but never there is not bread. As a noun the plural is noes or nos, as in the noes have it. And in a shop or a form, no. with a full stop is short for number.

Definitions of no

1exclamationnoUsed to refuse something, to disagree, or to deny what has been said.A1~2%
“No, I didn't take it.”
2determinerdeterminerNot any; not one.A1~79%
“There is no milk left.”
3adverbfrontNot at all — used in front of a comparative.B1~17%
“The second attempt was no better than the first.”
4nounrefusalA refusal, or a vote against something.B1~2%
“The answer was a flat no.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Also accepted in games: nope

Phrases it lives in

no way — an outright refusal, or plain disbelief, depending on the tone
no wonder — It is not surprising.

Where it comes from

No started life as none. Old English nan meant none or not any, and it was itself ne, not, plus an, one — literally not one. Before a consonant the final -n fell away, the way an shortens to a, and none became no.

Proto-Germanic
*nainaz — not any
Proto-West Germanic
*nain
Old English
nān — none, not any
Middle English
no
English, today
no

Built from

nan · Middle English — none, not any

Middle English no, noo, na, a reduced form of none, noon, nan (“none, not any”) used before consonants (compare a to an), from Old English nān (“none, not any”), from Proto-West Germanic nain, from Proto-Germanic nainaz (“not any”) literally “not one”, equivalent to ne + a. none. Cognate with Scots nae (“no, not any, none”), Old Frisian nān, nēn "no, not any, none"; > stq naan, neen (“no, not any, none”), frr nian (“no, not any, none”), Old Dutch nēn "no, not any, none"; > Dutch neen (“no”), Old Norse neinn (“no, not any, none”). Compare also Old Saxon nigēn "not any"; > Low German nen, Old Dutch nehēn (Middle Dutch negheen/negeen, Dutch geen), West Frisian gjin, Old High German nihein (> German kein). More at no, one.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in News & Communication

Practise this word

no in the wild

Other jurisdictions make no such distinction and all lawyers for admission may be said to be, called to the bar.
Bar (law)
Based in Newmarket in Suffolk, it was a registered charity under English law and received no government funding.
Animal Health Trust
Despite numerous studies, there is no evidence that symptoms associated with CLD are caused by any persistent infection.
Chronic Lyme disease
On January 18, Mali was declared Ebola-free after 42 days with no new cases.
Ebola virus disease in Mali
The award is to be given to a citizen of the United States, preferably no older than 35 years of age.
William O. Baker Award for Initiatives in Research

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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.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Definitions of no

1exclamationnoUsed to refuse something, to disagree, or to deny what has been said.A1~2%

“No, I didn't take it.”

2determinerdeterminerNot any; not one.A1~79%

“There is no milk left.”

3adverbfrontNot at all — used in front of a comparative.B1~17%

“The second attempt was no better than the first.”

4nounrefusalA refusal, or a vote against something.B1~2%

“The answer was a flat no.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 11 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Also accepted in games: nope