An abbreviation
of North America, or North American;
of National Academy, or National Academician;
in microscopy, of numerical aperture (see objective).
noun.
An abbreviation of the Latin nota bene, literally, mark or note well—that is, take particular notice.
noun.
An abbreviation of New Latin.
An abbreviation
of New Style, and
of New Series.
noun.
An abbreviation of New Testament.
An abbreviation of northwest.
The fourteenth letter and eleventh consonant in the English alphabet, having a corresponding place also in the alphabets from which ours comes.
The value of the character has been the same through the whole history of its use. It stands for the “dental” nasal, the nasal sound corresponding to d and t, as does m to b and p, and ng to g and k. This sound, namely, implies for its formation the same check or mute-contact as d and t, with sonant vibration of the vocal cords as in d, and further with unclosure of the passage from the mouth into the nose, and nasal resonance there. Among the nasals, it is by far the most common in English pronunciation (more than twice as common as m, and eight times as common as ng). While all the nasals are semivocalic or liquid, n is the only one which (like l, but not more than half as often) is used with vocalic value in syllable-making: namely, in unaccented syllables, where an accompanying vowel, formerly uttered, is now silenced: examples are token, rotten, open, lesson, reason, oven; such form, on an average, about one in eight hundred of English syllables. The sign n has no variety of sounds; but before ch, j, in the same syllable (as in inch, hinge) it takes on a slightly modified—a palatalized—character; and similarly it is gutturalized, or pronounced as ng, before k and g (hard), as in ink, finger; and its digraph ng (see G) is the usual representative of the guttural or back-palatal nasal, which in none of our alphabets has a letter to itself. N is doubled under the same circumstances as other consonants, and in a few words (as kiln, damn, hymn) is silent. In the phonetic history of our family of languages, n is on the whole a constant sound; that is to say, there is no other sound into which it passes on a large scale; but its loss, with accompanying vowel-modification, has been a frequent process.
As a medieval numeral, 90, and with a stroke over it (Ñ), 90,000.
In chem., the symbol for nitrogen.
In mathematics, an indefinite constant whole number, especially the degree of a quantic or an equation, or the class of a curve.
An abbreviation
of north or northern;
of noun (so used in this work);
of neuter;
of nail (or nails), a measure.
noun.
An abbreviation of New Brunswick; of North Britain; of North British.
noun.
An abbreviation of New Church; of North Carolina.
noun.
An abbreviation of no date.
An abbreviation
of National Guard;
of no good or no go.
noun.
An abbreviation of New England;
noun.
of northeast;
noun.
of Northeastern Postal District, London.
An abbreviation
of Newfoundland;
of New French;
of Norman French.
An abbreviation
of New Granada;
of Noble Grand.
noun.
An abbreviation of New Hampshire.
noun.
An abbreviation of Native Infantry.
An abbreviation
of Nationalist;
in meteor., of nimbus;
in chem., of normal, in reference to the strength of a solution; ⁄110 n. stands for one tenth normal strength, or a normal solution diluted tenfold: also written /10 or /10. See normal solution.