nesh

• IPA^(key): /nɛʃ/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ɛʃ

From Middle English nesh, nesch, nesche, from Old English hnesċe, hnysċe, hnæsċe (“soft, tender, mild; weak, delicate; slack, negligent; effeminate, wanton”), from Proto-West Germanic *hnaskwī, from Proto-Germanic *hnaskuz (“soft, tender”), from Proto-Indo-European *knēs-, *kenes- (“to scratch, scrape, rub”).

Cognate with Scots nesch, nesh (“soft, tender, yielding easily to pressure, sensitive”), Dutch nesch, nes (“wet, moist”), Gothic 𐌷𐌽𐌰𐍃𐌵𐌿𐍃 (hnasqus, “soft, tender, delicate”). Compare also nask, nasky, nasty.

• nish (Newfoundland English)

nesh (comparative nesher, superlative neshest)

1. (now UK dialectal) Soft; tender; sensitive; yielding.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter XX, in Le Morte Darthur, book XIII:

     haue ye no merueylle sayd the good man therof / for hit semeth wel god loueth yow / for men maye vnderstande a stone is hard of kynde / […] / for thou wylt not leue thy synne for no goodnes that god hath sente the / therfor thou arte more than ony stone / and neuer woldest thow be maade neysshe nor by water nor by fyre

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. (now UK dialectal) Delicate; weak; poor-spirited; susceptible to cold weather, harsh conditions etc.
   • 1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, “Chapter 4”, in The Woodlanders […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     And if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding-school, he'll make her as nesh as her mother was.

   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 8, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     No, tha'd drop down stiff, as dead as a door-knob, wi' thy nesh sides.

3. (now UK dialectal) Soft; friable; crumbly.

• This is a fairly widespread dialect term throughout north-central England and North Wales.

• neshen
• neshness

From Middle English neschen, from Old English hnesċan, hnesċian (“to make soft, soften; become soft, give way, waver”), from Proto-West Germanic *hnaskwōn (“to make soft”), from Proto-Indo-European *knēs-, *kenes- (“to scratch, scrape, rub”). Cognate with Old High German nascōn ("to nibble at, parasitise, squander"; > German naschen (“to nibble, pinch”)). Doublet of nosh.

nesh (third-person singular simple present neshes, present participle neshing, simple past and past participle neshed)

1. (transitive) To make soft, tender, or weak.
2. (intransitive, dialectal, Northern England) To act timidly.

• NHEs, Shen, hens

• nãsh, nãshi

Plural of nes.

nesh m pl (masculine singular nes, feminine singular nese, feminine plural nesi)

1. (third-person masculine plural pronoun) they (all male or mixed group)

• eyi

• mini
• tini
• el, nes
• noi
• voi