nadie

Spanish

Alternative forms

naide, naiden, nadien (non-standard)

Etymology

From Old Spanish nadi (“no one”), nade, inherited from Latin nātī (“born men/people”), perfect past participle of nāscor (“I am 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 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

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

de casi no se muere nadie
don nadie
nadie es perfecto
que nadie se llame a engaño
tierra de nadie