nadie

Spanish

Alternative forms

• naide, naiden, nadien, nadies (nonstandard)

Etymology

Inherited from Old Spanish nadi (“no one”), nade, inherited from Latin nātī (“born men/people”), perfect past participle of nāscor (“to be born”), ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁-.

The semantic change is due to commonly being used with negated verbs in spoken Ibero-Romance, supposing for example *nātī nōn fēcērunt (“born [people] did not do it”), cognate with Old Galician-Portuguese nado (“no one”). Compare the development of French personne from “person” to “no one”. Old Spanish commonly also used the phrase omne nado. nada (“nothing”) also originates from the same root, from (rēs) nāta (“born thing”); see Jespersen's Cycle. The final unstressed vowel was influenced by quién/quien and alguién (today alguien) towards the very end of the Old Spanish period: Coromines and Pascual report the earliest attestation of the -ie form is in Nebrija.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈnadje/ [ˈna.ð̞je]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -adje
• Syllabification: na‧die

Pronoun

nadie

1. no one, nobody; anyone, anybody

   No hay nadie en el cuarto.

   There is no one in the room.

   No conozco a nadie de España.

   I do not know anyone from Spain.

   Nadie sabe que su hermano es gay.

   Nobody knows that his/her brother is gay.

Derived terms

• a nadie le amarga un dulce
• de casi no se muere nadie
• don nadie
• nadie es perfecto
• no casarse con nadie
• que nadie se llame a engaño
• tierra de nadie

 

See also

• alguien

Further reading

• “nadie”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10
• Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1985) “nacer”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critic Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), volume IV (Me–Re), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, pages 201-204