Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word nie. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word nie, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say nie in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word nie you have here. The definition of the word nie will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofnie, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
This word has to be repeated at the end of a sentence, unless it is already the last word according to its natural position. (See the Wikipedia article about double negatives in Germanic languages.) Double negation is optional when the last word is another negator, such as nooit(“never”).
While the spelling nie and the invariable use of the corresponding pronunciation are dialectal, the standard word niet is not rarely given the same pronunciation, particularly in fast speech.
Er hat sich in zwei Wochen nie die Haare gewaschen.
He never washed his hair for two weeks.
Usage notes
(not once): In English it is quite common to use the word “never” referring to a defined period of time: “I was waiting all night, but he never called.” German generally prefers, and often requires, to use nicht(“not”) in such contexts, possibly emphasized by another adverb such as gar or überhaupt: Ich habe den ganzen Abend gewartet, aber er hat (gar) nicht angerufen. Using nie is only possible if such a period of time is (unusually) long, as in the example sentence above.
1) obsolete *) the accusative corresponds with either the genitive (sg) or nominative (pl) **) the comitative is formed by adding the suffix -ka? or -kä? to the genitive.
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.
Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages, Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
B. Sieradzka-Baziur, Ewa Deptuchowa, Joanna Duska, Mariusz Frodyma, Beata Hejmo, Dorota Janeczko, Katarzyna Jasińska, Krystyna Kajtoch, Joanna Kozioł, Marian Kucała, Dorota Mika, Gabriela Niemiec, Urszula Poprawska, Elżbieta Supranowicz, Ludwika Szelachowska-Winiarzowa, Zofia Wanicowa, Piotr Szpor, Bartłomiej Borek, editors (2011–2015), “nie”, in Słownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego [Conceptual Dictionary of Old Polish] (in Polish), Kraków: IJP PAN, →ISBN
According to Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990), nie is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 395 times in scientific texts, 446 times in news, 1225 times in essays, 2061 times in fiction, and 3714 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 8341 times, making it the 5th most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.[1]
References
^ Ida Kurcz (1990) “nie”, in Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej [Frequency dictionary of the Polish language] (in Polish), volume 1, Kraków, Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Języka Polskiego, page 280
Further reading
nie in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
Maria Renata Mayenowa, Stanisław Rospond, Witold Taszycki, Stefan Hrabec, Władysław Kuraszkiewicz (2010-2023) “nie”, in Słownik Polszczyzny XVI Wieku [A Dictionary of 16th Century Polish]
Maria Renata Mayenowa, Stanisław Rospond, Witold Taszycki, Stefan Hrabec, Władysław Kuraszkiewicz (2010-2023) “nie”, in Słownik Polszczyzny XVI Wieku [A Dictionary of 16th Century Polish]
“NIE”, in Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century], 15.02.2015