Nether
adj, adv, name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Oppression; stress; a withering or stunting influence. Scotland, UK, dialectal
- 2 A trouble; a fault or dislocation in a seam of coal.
- 1 To bring or thrust down; bring or make low; lower; abase; humble. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive
- 2 To constrict; straiten; confine; restrict; suppress; lay low; keep under; press in upon; vex; harass; oppress. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive
- 3 To pinch or stunt with cold or hunger; check in growth; shrivel; straiten. Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive
- 4 To shrink or huddle, as with cold; be shivery; tremble. Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive
- 5 To depreciate; disparage; undervalue. Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive
- 1 Lower; under.
"The disappointed child’s nether lip quivered."
- 2 Lying beneath, or conceived as lying beneath, the Earth’s surface.
"the nether regions"
- 1 located below or beneath something else wordnet
- 2 dwelling beneath the surface of the earth wordnet
- 3 lower wordnet
- 1 Down; downward.
- 2 Low; low down.
- 1 Alternative letter-case form of the Nether. alt-of
- 2 A dangerous, hell-like underworld dimension in the game Minecraft, accessed via an obsidian portal, filled with lava, unique mobs, and resources.
Example
More examples"Ho ho, you have always been the brightest amongst my grandchildren! But hearken now: I have come from the nether realm to entrust thee with a task of utmost importance!"
Etymology
From Middle English nether, nethere, nithere, from Old English niþera (“lower, under, lowest”, adjective), from niþer, niþor (“below, beneath, down, downwards, lower, in an inferior position”, adverb), from Proto-West Germanic *niþer, from Proto-Germanic *niþer, *niþra (“down”), from Proto-Indo-European *ni-, *nei- (“in, down”). Cognates include Dutch neder, German nieder, Luxembourgish nidder, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish ned, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish nedre (“lower”), Faroese and Icelandic niður.
Alteration of earlier nither, from Middle English nitheren, from Old English niþerian (“to depress, abase, bring low, humiliate, oppress, accuse, condemn”), from niþer (“below, beneath, down, downwards, lower, in an inferior position”). See above.
From nether (“lying beneath”).
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.