Meaning & use
ne'er-do-well
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Meanings
nouncountableold-fashioneddisapproving
A person who is lazy and irresponsible and never accomplishes anything worthwhile.
Grammar: Takes an or the and has a plural ne'er-do-wells: He was a ne'er-do-well.
Patterns
- a ne'er-do-well
- the family ne'er-do-well
Everyone in the village thought the young man was a ne'er-do-well.
The family's ne'er-do-well turned up again, asking for money.
In the novel, the hero's brother is a charming ne'er-do-well who gambles away his wages.
adjectivebefore a nounold-fashioned
Lazy and unreliable, or marked by never achieving anything.
Grammar: Comes before a noun: his ne'er-do-well son.
Patterns
- a ne'er-do-well son
His ne'er-do-well cousin borrowed his car and never returned it.
She worried about the ne'er-do-well friends her son had made.
The ne'er-do-well nephew was always between jobs.
Word forms
| plural | ne'er-do-wells |
|---|
Common combinations
- charming ne'er-do-well
- He was a charming ne'er-do-well with a gift for storytelling.
- family ne'er-do-well
- Uncle Ray was the family ne'er-do-well.
- idle ne'er-do-well
- The town's idle ne'er-do-well spent his days by the harbor.
- ne'er-do-well son
- The old farmer feared his ne'er-do-well son would lose the land.
- lazy ne'er-do-well
- The playwright created a lazy ne'er-do-well as the comic villain.
Synonyms and how they differ
- good-for-nothing
- Good-for-nothing is harsher and more openly insulting, while ne'er-do-well can sound gently amused.
- layabout
- Layabout stresses laziness and avoiding work, which is informal British usage.
- wastrel
- Wastrel is a literary word for someone who wastes money or time.
- loafer
- Loafer is an everyday word for an idle person, with less sense of lifelong failure.
Opposites
Word family
- ne'er adverb
- a poetic short form of never
- never adverb
- at no time; the full form that ne'er shortens
Commonly confused: ne'er-do-well or neer-do-well? ne'er-do-well or do-gooder?
ne'er-do-well vs neer-do-well
The standard spelling has an apostrophe after the first letter, ne'er-do-well, and not neer-do-well.
ne'er-do-well vs do-gooder
A do-gooder tries to help others, often too eagerly, while a ne'er-do-well achieves nothing.
Practice
Grandfather called his lazy nephew a ______, because he never held a job for more than a month.
Choose one answer.
A ne'er-do-well is an idle, unreliable person. A high-flyer and a go-getter are ambitious achievers, and a do-gooder tries to help others.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ne'er-do-well”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.