Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word neat. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word neat, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say neat in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word neat you have here. The definition of the word neat will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofneat, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. ¶ There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.
A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,[…].
1756, David Garrick, Catharine and Petruchio, London: J. & R. Tonson and S. Draper, Prologue:
From this same Head, this Fountain-head divine, / For different Palates springs a different Wine! / In which no Tricks, to strengthen, or to thin ’em— / Neat as imported—no French Brandy in em’—
1932, Winston Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, New York: Cornerstone Library, 1965,
At one side of the palette there is white, at the other black; and neither is ever used ‘neat.’
(chemistry) Conditions with a liquid reagent or gas performed with no standard solvent or cosolvent.
The Arbuzov reaction is performed by adding the bromide to the phosphite, neat. The molecular beam was neat acetylene.
1720, William Bond, chapter 4, in The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, London: E. Curll, pages 55–56:
Why without telling the least title of Falshood, within the space of the last Week’s Play, the Gains of Count Cog, really amounted to no less than Twenty Thousand Pounds Sterling neat Money.
1752, David Hume, Political Discourses, Edinburgh: A. Kincaid & A. Donaldson, Discourse 5, page 81:
Dr. Swift[…] says, in his short view of the state of Ireland, that the whole cash of that kingdom amounted to 500,000 l. that out of this they remitted every year a neat million to England, and had scarce any other source to compensate themselves from […]
1793, John Brand, The Alteration of the Constitution of the House of Commons, and the Inequality of the Land-Tax, Considered Jointly, London: J. Evans, Section III, p. 52:
It may be said, that the increase of the tax is an uncompensated reduction of the neat income of the landlord […]
Having a simple elegance or style; clean, trim, tidy, tasteful.
The front room was neat and carefully arranged for the guests.
Well-executed or delivered; clever, skillful, precise.
Having the two protagonists meet in the last act was a particularly neat touch.
In bartending, neat has the formal meaning “a liquor pour straight from the bottle into a glass, at room temperature, without ice or chilling”. This is contrasted with on the rocks(“over ice”), and with drinks that are chilled but strained (stirred over ice to chill, but poured through a strainer so that there is no ice in the glass), which is formally referred to as up. However, the terminology is a point of significant confusion, with neat, up, straight up, and straight being used by bar patrons (and some bartenders) variously and ambiguously to mean either “unchilled” or “chilled” (but without ice in the glass), and hence clarification is often required.[1][2]
Antonyms
(antonym(s) of “undiluted liquor or cocktail”):on the rocks
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
1557 February 13 (Gregorian calendar), Thomas Tusser, “Januarye”, in A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, London: Richard Tottel, →OCLC; republished London: Robert Triphook,, and William Sancho,, 1810, →OCLC, stanza 54:
Who both by his calfe, & his lambe wil be known, / may well kill a neate and a shepe of his owne. / And he that wil reare up a pyg in his house, / hath cheaper his bacon, and sweter his souse.