nook

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English nok, also noke and northern nuke and nouk,^[2][3][4] of unknown origin.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} The MED and the American Heritage Dictionary take it as probably of Scandinavian origin,^[2][3] comparing a Norwegian dialect word, nōk (“hook”);^[2][3][5] Etymonline, Barnhart, Weekley and Klein cite the same word, or nokke, as "hook, bent figure".^{[6][10][11][12]} Etymonline and Klein also mention Old English hnecca (“neck”), though Etymonline thinks the change of sense would be hard to explain.^[6][12] The American Heritage Dictionary and the OED compare Middle Low German nōke (“acute-angled piece of land”), but the OED calls any relationship unclear.^[3][5] The OED notes that most Middle English examples are northern or East Midland, that Medieval Latin noca (“corner of land”) is recorded in British sources from 1172, and that the earliest English trace is the adjective four-nooked in Laȝamon.^[5] The similar Celtic words are, according to Etymonline, borrowings from English,^[6] and Skeat thought the Irish and Gaelic words came from the Lowland Scots neuk.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A corner of a thing seen as a separate part; a piece or fragment: about 1300, in Havelok.^[5] Etymonline glosses its first record, about 1300, as an angle formed where two lines meet, or a corner of a room.^[6] The adjective nooked, having corners, is found as noked before the noun, probably before 1200.^[10][7]

Semantic evolution

By the end of the Middle English period the word had a wide range of senses.^[5] It was used of the corner of a cloth or document (about 1380), the corners or ends of the earth (about 1450 to 1650), the outside corner of a building (before 1400) and a headland (before 1425 to 1610).^[5][2] The sense of a hidden or out-of-the-way corner appears before 1425,^[5] and Etymonline dates "remote or secluded place" to the late 14th century.^[6] A small corner or recess in a room follows about 1450, a secluded spot among rocks or trees in 1555, and a remote part of a country about 1480.^[5] In land measurement a nook was 20 or 12½ acres (from before 1634).^[5] The word stayed most common in Scotland, the north of England and the Midlands,^[5] where Wright records forms such as neuk, neak and newk.^[14] Johnson (1755) defined it as a corner, quoting Shakespeare's Tempest.^[15] The verb, to hide in a corner, is recorded from 1611.^[5] In British slang of the 1930s nook was also a penny, of unknown origin.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – a corner of something; a piece, a fragment.^[5]
• c. 1380 – a corner of a square object such as a cloth or paper.^[5][2]
• before 1400 – the outside corner of a building.^[5]
• before 1425 – an out-of-the-way corner; an inside corner of a room; a headland (obsolete by 1610).^[5]
• c. 1450 – any small corner or recess; the corners of the earth (obsolete by 1650).^[5]
• c. 1480 – a remote part of a country or of the world.^[5]
• 1555 – a secluded or sheltered spot among rocks or trees.^[5]
• 1611 – verb, to hide in a corner.^[5]
• before 1634 – a measure of land.^[5]
• 1936 – in slang, a penny.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A corner or small recess, especially in a room: a reading nook by the window.^[17][4][5]
2. A secluded or sheltered place; a retreat.^[17][5]
3. A remote or out-of-the-way part of a country or region.^[5]
4. (chiefly Scottish) A corner of a square piece of cloth or paper, or of a field.^[4][5]
5. (obsolete, before 1425–1610) A point of land running into the sea; a promontory.^[4][5]

Verb

1. (rare) To put in a corner; to hide.^[5][9]

Word family

• nooklike
• nookery

Related words

• inglenook
• nooked

Usage notes

The OED notes that most 18th-century authorities gave the pronunciation /nuːk/; /nʊk/ is first recorded in 1798, spread in the 19th century and became the usual pronunciation in British and American English in the 20th.^[5]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins