Other forms: nods, nodding, nodded
To nod is to tip your head down and up again — the yes you give without opening your mouth. You nod at a neighbour across the street, nod along while somebody explains the parking rules, nod when the dentist asks if that hurts.
Nod is the noun as well: she gave a quick nod and walked on. Two everyday phrases sit on top of it. To nod off is to fall asleep by accident, chin sinking towards your chest in front of the television. And a nod to something is a small deliberate reference — the new station has a nod to the old one in its roof; give somebody the nod means to approve them or pick them for the job. The opposite gesture is shaking your head, side to side for no, and not every country in the world reads the two the same way.
1verbnodTo move your head down and up, to mean yes or to greet someone.~2%
“She nodded when I asked whether the seat was free.”
2verbdropTo let your head drop forward as you drift into sleep.~2%
“He nodded off before the end of the second half.”
3nounquickA quick downward movement of the head.~16%
“He answered with a nod and shut the door.”
4nounbriefA brief sign of approval, or a small reference to something.~80%
“The brick front is a nod to the mill that stood there before.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 6 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Nod appears in Middle English as nodden, and behind it sits an Old English hnodian that nobody ever wrote down. Further back, Proto-Germanic *hnudōną meant something far rougher: 'to beat, rivet, pound, push'. Icelandic still uses a relative of it for clinching a nail. The politest movement in English began as a word for knocking metal about.
Proto-Indo-European
*kendʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*hnudōną — to beat, rivet, pound, push
Proto-West Germanic
*hnodōn
Old English
*hnodian — to nod, shake the head
Middle English
nodden
English, today
nod
Built from
From Middle English nodden, probably from an unrecorded Old English hnodian (“to nod, shake the head”), from Proto-West Germanic hnodōn, from Proto-Germanic hnudōną (“to beat, rivet, pound, push”), from Proto-Indo-European kendʰ-, from ken- (“to scratch, scrape, rub”). Compare Old High German hnotōn (“to shake”), hnutten (“to shake, rattle, vibrate”) (> modern dialectal German notteln, nütteln (“to rock, move back and forth”)), Faroese njóða (“to clench a nail”), Icelandic hnjóða (“to rivet, clinch”), Faroese noða (“to double by bending”), Icelandic hnoða (“to clinch, rivet”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA