nous
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek νοῦς (noûs) or νόος (nóos, “mind”).
Pronunciation
- (UK) enPR: nous, IPA(key): /naʊs/
- Rhymes: -aʊs
- (US) enPR: noo͞s, IPA(key): /nuːs/
Audio (US) (file)
Noun
nous (uncountable)
- (philosophy) The mind or intellect, reason, both rational and emotional
- 1900, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, On the Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in all Classes:
- I feel the will to roam, to learn
By test, experience, nous,
That fire is hot and ocean deep,
And wolves carnivorous.
- In Neoplatonism, the divine reason, regarded as first divine emanation.
- Common sense; practical intelligence.
- 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Uniform edition, Edward Arnold, Part I, I, page 19:
- There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originally lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous.
Translations
Catalan
French
Etymology 1
Inherited from Middle French nous, from Old French nous, nos, from Latin nōs, from Proto-Italic *nōs.
In several dialects of French, je may be used instead of nous (j'allons instead of nous allons, je voyons instead of nous voyons etc.), this use was perceived as peasant-like and thus often mocked since the 15th century (for example by Molière). However this use survived and spread in various regions of the so-called domaine d'oïl (linguistic area starting above Auvergne where the oïl varieties of Romance developed from the 4th or 5th century). The regions of France where this use of je (from Latin ego "I") instead of nous, nos (from Latin nos, "we") was recorded are Normandy, Romance-speaking Brittany, Poitou and Anjou, Champagne, Ardennes, Bourgogne and Franche-Comté, Dauphiné, Berry, Touraine, Orléanais, Bourbonnais, Maine. See cognates in regional languages in France: Angevin je and nous, Bourbonnais-Berrichon je and nous, Bourguignon i and nous, Champenois ju and nous, Franc-Comtois i and nôs, Gallo je and nouz, Lorrain nos, Norman je and nos, Orléanais je and nous, Picard nos, Poitevin-Saintongeais i/jhe and nous, Franco-Provençal nos, Occitan nosautres (Provençal nousautes), Catalan nosaltres, Corsican noi.
Pronoun
nous (first-person plural, singular je, object nous, emphatic nous, possessive determiner notre)
- the plural personal pronoun in the first person:
- (royal, obsolete) we (as the royal we)
Derived terms
- ce que c’est que de nous !
- entre nous
- nous autres
- nous de majesté
- nous-mêmes
See also
Number | Person | Gender | Nominative (subject) |
Accusative (direct complement) |
Dative (indirect complement) |
Disjunctive (tonic) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | First | — | je, j’ | me, m’ | moi | |
Second | — | tu | te, t’ | toi | ||
Third | Masculine | il | le, l’ | lui | lui | |
Feminine | elle | la, l’ | elle | |||
Gender neutral5 | iel | lea | ellui | |||
Indeterminate | on1 | — | — | — | ||
Reflexive | — | se, s’4 | soi4 | |||
Plural | First | — | nous | nous | nous | |
Second | — | vous2 | vous2,3 | vous2 | ||
Third | Masculine | ils3 | les | leur | eux | |
Feminine | elles | elles | ||||
Gender neutral5 | iels | elleux |
- 1 Also used as the first person plural.
- 2 Also used as the polite singular form.
- 3 Also used when a group has both men and women.
- 4 Also used as third person plural reflexive.
- 5 Colloquial, and not in popular use.
Etymology 2
From Ancient Greek νοῦς (noûs) or νόος (nóos, “mind”).
Further reading
- “nous”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Old French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /nus/