nous

CEFRB2

/naʊs/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

Examples

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Also pronounced

Deep Dive

Extra meanings

In context

to demonstrate nous
I feel the will to roam, to learn By test, experience, nous, That fire is hot and ocean deep, And wolves carnivorous.
There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous.

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Question 1 · Quick check

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The word in print, with each source given in full.

I feel the will to roam, to learn By test, experience, nous, That fire is hot and ocean deep, And wolves carnivorous.
1900, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, On the Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in all Classes
There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous.
1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 13
The emerging African elite felt little affection for the wahindi, seen as tight-fisted, snooty and brazenly colour-conscious, but its members knew they needed its business nous.
2009, Michela Wrong, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower

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Borrowed from Ancient Greek νοῦς (noûs) or νόος (nóos, “mind”).