See ned in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"etymology_text": "Unknown. The suggested initialism from \"non-educated delinquent\" is a backronym and folk etymology. Several other suggestions include a contraction of ne'er-do-well, neanderthal, or some kind of relationship with Teddy Boy although its use much predates the 1950s origin of that phrase. Ostensibly unrelated to \"Ned\" as a diminutive of the personal name \"Edward\" but the Scottish use of 'ned' for hooligan or lout is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as dating from the early 19th century. The OED also attributes a possible derivation from the 'Edward' diminutive.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "neds",
"tags": [
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}
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"head_templates": [
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"expansion": "ned (plural neds)",
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"lang": "English",
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"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
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{
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "2007 (Scotland), RecordView in Daily Record, 14 Feb 07, Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail, p. 8",
"text": "The mindless behaviour of drunken neds and nuisance neighbours brings misery to tens of thousands of honest folk."
},
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"ref": "2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 28:",
"text": "You could live in a place for twenty years, you could clean up its streets and lock up its neds.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person, usually a youth, of low social standing and education, with a violent disposition and a particular style of dress (typically sportswear or Burberry), speech and behaviour."
],
"id": "en-ned-en-noun-vR9aSNfE",
"links": [
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"raw_glosses": [
"(Scotland, slang, derogatory, offensive) A person, usually a youth, of low social standing and education, with a violent disposition and a particular style of dress (typically sportswear or Burberry), speech and behaviour."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"tags": [
"England"
],
"word": "chav"
},
{
"english": "Northeast England",
"translation": "Northeast England",
"word": "charva"
},
{
"tags": [
"Northern-England"
],
"word": "scally"
},
{
"english": "Dublin/Ireland",
"translation": "Dublin/Ireland",
"word": "scanger"
},
{
"tags": [
"Scotland"
],
"word": "schemie"
},
{
"tags": [
"Scotland"
],
"word": "Senga"
},
{
"word": "yob"
},
{
"tags": [
"Australia",
"England"
],
"word": "yobbo"
},
{
"tags": [
"Northern-Ireland"
],
"word": "spide"
}
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"sounds": [
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"tags": [
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"tags": [
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},
{
"rhymes": "-ɛd"
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"word": "ned"
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"etymology_text": "Unknown. The suggested initialism from \"non-educated delinquent\" is a backronym and folk etymology. Several other suggestions include a contraction of ne'er-do-well, neanderthal, or some kind of relationship with Teddy Boy although its use much predates the 1950s origin of that phrase. Ostensibly unrelated to \"Ned\" as a diminutive of the personal name \"Edward\" but the Scottish use of 'ned' for hooligan or lout is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as dating from the early 19th century. The OED also attributes a possible derivation from the 'Edward' diminutive.",
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"ref": "2007 (Scotland), RecordView in Daily Record, 14 Feb 07, Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail, p. 8",
"text": "The mindless behaviour of drunken neds and nuisance neighbours brings misery to tens of thousands of honest folk."
},
{
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],
"ref": "2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 28:",
"text": "You could live in a place for twenty years, you could clean up its streets and lock up its neds.",
"type": "quotation"
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],
"glosses": [
"A person, usually a youth, of low social standing and education, with a violent disposition and a particular style of dress (typically sportswear or Burberry), speech and behaviour."
],
"links": [
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"raw_glosses": [
"(Scotland, slang, derogatory, offensive) A person, usually a youth, of low social standing and education, with a violent disposition and a particular style of dress (typically sportswear or Burberry), speech and behaviour."
],
"tags": [
"Scotland",
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"tags": [
"UK"
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},
{
"rhymes": "-ɛd"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"tags": [
"England"
],
"word": "chav"
},
{
"english": "Northeast England",
"translation": "Northeast England",
"word": "charva"
},
{
"tags": [
"Northern-England"
],
"word": "scally"
},
{
"english": "Dublin/Ireland",
"translation": "Dublin/Ireland",
"word": "scanger"
},
{
"tags": [
"Scotland"
],
"word": "schemie"
},
{
"tags": [
"Scotland"
],
"word": "Senga"
},
{
"word": "yob"
},
{
"tags": [
"Australia",
"England"
],
"word": "yobbo"
},
{
"tags": [
"Northern-Ireland"
],
"word": "spide"
}
],
"word": "ned"
}
Download raw JSONL data for ned meaning in English (3.4kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-16 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (d6fca27 and 65e1673). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.