What does ne'er-do-well mean?

ne'er-do-well means "an idle worthless person".

How many syllables are in ne'er-do-well?

ne'er-do-well has 3 syllables and divides as ne'er--do--well under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for ne'er-do-well?

Close synonyms include goldbrick, goof-off, good-for-nothing, no-account, good-for-naught. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is ne'er-do-well a common word?

ne'er-do-well is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

Ne'er-do-well — meaning and 5 synonyms

noun

1 senseA person, place, thing, quality or idea.

1.
an idle worthless person
Synonymsgoldbrick goof-off good-for-nothing no-account good-for-naught
Broaderidler

Questions about ne'er-do-well

What does ne'er-do-well mean?: ne'er-do-well means "an idle worthless person".

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ne'er-do-well

noun

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