nau

nau

1. (international standards) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Nauruan.

From Portuguese nau. Doublet of nef and nave.

• enPR: nou, IPA^(key): /naʊ/
• Rhymes: -aʊ

nau (plural naus)

1. (historical) Synonym of carrack.
   • 2008, Liam Matthew Brockey, Portuguese Colonial Cities in the Early Modern World‎^[1]:

     Bentley Duncan has even suggested that it was the prospect of trade rather than the doubtful facilities of the dockyard that persuaded so many naus to stop at Mozambique Island.

• Anu, UNA, Una, añu

From Latin nāvem.

nau f (plural naus)

1. ship

• Bal Palazios, Santiago (2002) “nau”, in Dizionario breu de a luenga aragonesa, Zaragoza, →ISBN

• IPA^(key): /nau̯/ [nau̯]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -au̯
• Hyphenation: nau

nau (masculine allocutive naik, feminine allocutive nain)

1. Third-person singular (hark), taking first-person singular (ni) as direct object, present indicative form of izan.

Linguistically, this verb form can be seen as belonging to the reconstructed citation form edun instead of izan.

Inherited from Old Catalan nau, from Latin nāvem, from Proto-Indo-European *néh₂us.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈnaw]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aw

nau f (plural naus)

1. ship

   Hypernym: vaixell

2. (architecture, religion) nave, aisle (open space in a building between walls or columns rows)

   la nau lateral de la basílica ― the lateral nave of the basilica

3. industrial building

• nau espacial

• naval
• navili

• → Portuguese: nau, nao (obsolete)
  • → English: nau
• → Spanish: nao

• “nau”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “nau”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “nau” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “nau” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

nau

1. son

nau

1. that

nau

1. nine

• Fiji Hindi Dictionary
• Siegel, Jeff (1977) Say it in Fiji Hindi, Australia: Pacific Publications, →ISBN, page 28

nau

1. Rōmaji transcription of なう
2. Rōmaji transcription of ナウ

From Portuguese não.

nau

1. no

From Latin nāvis, nāvem.

• IPA^(key): /naw/

• Audio:

  (file)

nau f (plural naus)

1. ship, vessel, watercraft
2. (church) nave

• Diccionari General de la Lenga Occitana, L’Academia occitana – Consistòri del Gai Saber, 2008-2024, page 467.

From Proto-Celtic *nāwā, from Proto-Indo-European *néh₂us. Cognate with Latin navis and Ancient Greek ναῦς (naûs)

nau f (genitive naue)

1. boat

• Middle Irish: nó, nóe
  • Irish: nae

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “2 nó, noe”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Compare German nun, Dutch nu, English now.

nau

1. now

• nao (obsolete)

Borrowed from Catalan nau, from Latin nāvis.^[1][2] Compare Spanish nao. Doublet of nave.

• Rhymes: -aw
• Hyphenation: nau

nau f (plural naus)

1. a three or four-masted sailing ship used all along the 15th century and early 16th created by the Portuguese (Lusitanians) to explore a new trade route via the Atlantic to India and the New World
2. vessel
3. carrack

• → English: nau

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *náwjas, from Proto-Indo-European *néwyos. Compare Lithuanian naũjas, Old Prussian nauns, however Latvian jaûns.^[1][2]

nau

1. new

   Antonym: ſenſ (“old”)

   • “Pagan dialects from Narew” line 192, (copied by V. Zinov, 1983):

     nowy — nau

     nowy — new

• iauniſ (“young”)

nau

1. some

• tau

• Yves Lemaître, Lexique du tahitien contemporain (Current Tahitian lexicon), 1995.
• “nau” in Dictionnaire en ligne Tahitien/Français (Online Tahitian–French Dictionary), by the Tahitian Academy.

From English now.

nau

1. now
   • 1989, Buk Baibel long Tok Pisin, Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea, Jenesis 1:2:

     Tasol graun i no bin i stap olsem yumi save lukim nau.

     →New International Version translation

From an infixed form (with *-rn-) of Proto-Vietic ancestor of Vietnamese đau (“to be aching, sore, hurt, in pain; to be sick, ill (Northern)”).

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [naw˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [naw˧˧]
• (Saigon) IPA^(key): [na(ː)w˧˧]

nau • (㝹)

1. (obsolete) pain
   • Late 15th century, Tao Đàn nhị thập bát tú (Twenty-Eight Mansions of Tao Đàn), Hồng Đức Quốc Âm thi tập (Collection of Poem in the Nation's Language), folio 69b

     唯唯隊㝹郡𦛌𦚐

     Dói dói đòi nau quặn ruột rà.

     Sharp and keen are the guts' many twistings and writhings.

   • 18th century, Đặng Trần Côn (鄧陳琨) (circa 1705–1745) (original Chinese), translated by Đoàn Thị Điểm (段氏點) (1705–1746/1748) (traditionally claimed), might actually be translated by Phan Huy Ích (潘輝益) (1751–1822), Chinh phụ ngâm khúc (征婦吟曲) [The Song of a Soldier's Wife], lines 333-334:

     切𠬠身房空𨻫񣘋
     時節񣃡𢗖𢖵隊񠅡

     Thiết một thân phòng không luống giữ,
     Thời tiết lành nhầm nhỡ đòi nau; [...]

     Pitiful is the lonely wife inside an empty room
     Who lets her finest seasons [endure] much haphazard agony.

   • 1820, 阮攸 [Nguyễn Du], compiled by Liễu Văn Đường, 傳翹 [Truyện Kiều], published 1866, lines 1129-1130:

     Hoá nhi thật có nỡ lòng,
     Làm chi giày tía vò hồng lắm nau!

     Oh how pitiless you are, Creator!
     Why stamp on this rosy and purple flower which already had much pain in her heart? / Why inflict on this rosy and purple flower so much pain?

2. (obsolete) birth pang