Now Now adverb [ Middle English
nou ,
nu , Anglo-Saxon
nū ,
nu ; akin to D., Old Saxon , & Old High German
nu , German
nu ,
nun , Icelandic ,
nū , Dan., Swedish , & Goth.
nu , Latin
nunc , Greek ..., ..., Sanskrit
nu ,
nū . √193. Confer
New .]
1. At the present time; at this moment; at the time of speaking; instantly; as, I will write now . I have a patient now living, at an advanced age, who discharged blood from his lungs thirty years ago.
Arbuthnot. 2. Very lately; not long ago. They that but now , for honor and for plate,
Made the sea blush with blood, resign their hate.
Waller. 3. At a time contemporaneous with something spoken of or contemplated; at a particular time referred to. The ship was now in the midst of the sea.
Matt. xiv. 24. 4. In present circumstances; things being as they are; -- hence, used as a connective particle, to introduce an inference or an explanation. How shall any man distinguish now betwixt a parasite and a man of honor ?
L'Estrange. Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is ?
Shak. Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now , Barabbas was a robber.
John xviii. 40. The other great and undoing mischief which befalls men is, by their being misrepresented. Now , by calling evil good, a man is misrepresented to others in the way of slander.
South. Now and again ,
now and then; occasionally. --
Now and now ,
again and again; repeatedly. [ Obsolete]
Chaucer. --
Now and then ,
at one time and another; indefinitely; occasionally; not often; at intervals. "A mead here, there a heath, and
now and then a wood."
Drayton. --
Now now ,
at this very instant; precisely now. [ Obsolete] "Why, even
now now , at holding up of this finger, and before the turning down of this."
J. Webster (1607). --
Now . . . now ,
alternately; at one time . . . at another time. "
Now high,
now low,
now master up,
now miss."
Pope.
Noyau Noy`au" noun [ French, prop., the stone or nut of a fruit, from Latin
nucalis like a nut. See
Newel a post.]
A cordial of brandy, etc., flavored with the kernel of the bitter almond, or of the peach stone, etc.