K. 



N.EVTJS. 



N 



"M" is one of the liquid or trembling series of letters. It is formed 

 " with the tongue at the point where the teeth and palate meet, and 

 the aound passes chiefly through the nasal passage. For the characters 

 by which this letter is represented, see ALPHABET. 

 The letter n is subject to the following changes : 



1. It is interchangeable with nd. Thus the Latin roots men, fini, 

 gen (genus), appear in Saxon English as mind, bind or bound, kind or 

 kin. The converse change is common in the provincial dialect of 

 Somersetshire, where the English words wind, hind (behind), find, 

 round, and, are pronounced wine, lane, vine, roan, an ; while on the con- 

 trary, manner is changed to mander. [D.] 



2. Before /, n was silent in Latin. Hence the town Confluentes, at 

 the junction of the Moselle and Rhine, is now called Coblenz. So the 

 German fiinf is in Englishes. 



3. N final often becomes a more complete nasal, and is equivalent to 

 ng. Thus the German infinitive in en appears to be the parent not 

 only of the participle in end, but of the substantive in ung, with which 

 are connected the English participle and substantive of the same form 

 in in;/. The Somersetshire dialect prefers the n without g, as stanin, 

 /nifk/in,itarmn, for standing, sparkling, ttarriny. The Sanskrit alphabet 

 has a particular character for this sound. 



4. Xi or ne before a vowel often forms but one syllable with that 

 rowel, the i or e being pronounced like the initial y. This sound is 

 represented in Italian and French by gn, as Signor, Seigneur ; in 

 Spanish by n, as Seiior ; and in Portuguese by nh, as Senhor : all 

 derived from the Latin senior, elder. 



5. N is interchangeable with I. Hence the double form of luncheon 

 and nuncldon ; but see L. 



6. N with m, particularly at the end of words. [M.] 



7. On and o are frequently interchanged. Hence the disappearance 

 of the final n in the Latin nominatives ratio, ordo, Lam. The Por- 

 tuguese also often discard an 71 so placed. It is probably from a con- 

 fusion between the two sounds that the question has arisen, whether 

 the letter am of the Hebrew alphabet is an o or an n. 



8. R final perhaps with rn. Hence the double forms of the Latin verbs 

 cer and cern, separate ; liter and stern, strew ; iper and tpern, kick, despise. 

 Again star (and the Latin must once have had stera in order to form 

 from it the diminutive Stella, as from^ura comes puella) is in German 

 stern. Spur in the English is (porn in German, and of the same origin 

 perhaps is the name of the Spurn Head, at the mouth of the Humber, 

 as well as the Lathi spern-ere. The Latin bur (seen in com-bur-o) is 

 the same word as the English burn ; and even the Lathi curr-ere, to 

 run, has in Gothic the form urn-an, just as the south-western dialect 

 of England has kirn, and the ordinary English, by a slipping of the r 

 [R], run. In the same south-western dialect beforne, avaum, orn, norn, 

 ourn, are the forms employed for before, afore, or or either (Germ, oder) 

 nor. or neither, our. It is, however, not improbable that the n so often 

 attached to roots ending in r is the remnant of an actual suffix, like 

 the en or on of our open, reckon, or the ov of so many Greek verbs, 

 \an8ai>ta for example. 



9. N with *. This change will not be readily 'admitted without 

 consideration, as the sounds appear so different. The change however 

 is very parallel to the admitted change of I and d ; and indeed as the 

 two Litter letters are formed at the same part of the mouth, so are n 

 and . The close connection of the two letters will be most forcibly 

 demonstrated by examples of suffixes in which the change occurs. 

 Thus the English language has a double form of the plural suffix in en 

 and e#, as in oxen and asses. The Greek verb has the same variety ; 

 first, in TirrTOfUp and TUJTTOJMS ; secondly, in Tinrrrres, which must 

 have been the older form of ruin-ere, and the so-called dual -rvtricrov. 

 Again the Latin comparative has for its oldest suffix ios, as hi melios, 

 whence both melior and melius ; or a better example occurs in ple-ios 

 and pieot, whence the latter forms pious and pliii. On the other hand 

 the Greek suffix is ion, as n-Ac-ioy and irAeov, from the same root as the 

 Latjn plus, and with the same meaning. The old genitive plural suffix 

 in Latin appears to have been sum, as serrosum, whence servonm, ; but 

 the Sanskrit often exhibits plural genitives in nam. The suffix for a 

 female in Greek is either na or sa, as jScuriAiwa, jucAaira, Aeaiva, or 

 /3<u7iAi(r<ra, Ti/irrowra ; and in English we have en, while the Germans 

 have inr. Lastly, such verbs as a$tv-vviu have afttv for the radical 

 part, which often takes the form ffflts, as a-<rf)e<r-Tos ; and the same 

 change appears in <ru<t>pov, Nom. <ru<t>puv and autypoavvT]. As regards 

 pono, potui, poritum, the imperfect tenses are compressed from pos-n-o 

 or pos-in-o, so that this is no example of such interchange. 



10. N before > silent, but lengthening the preceding vowel. This 

 {act is well exemplified throughout the grammar of the Greek lan- 

 guage. The Latin had* the same peculiarity. Hence consul was some- 

 time* written cosol, and when abbreviated was always represented by 

 the three first of the sounded letters, namely, coi. So censor, infants, 

 vide*, viccntumtu, are often found in the form cetor, infos, tints, 



viceiimus. We see too why the Greeks wrote the Latin word Krjptrwp 

 KuvvravTivos, with a long vowel in the first syllable. Lastly, while the 

 Germans write gam, iiriinschen, the English have yoose, wish. 



11. N silent at times before t and th. The English word mutton is 

 derived from the French mouton and the Italian montone ; and our 

 word tooth in the older Gothic dialects was hmth, thus corresponding 

 as nearly as it ought to do with the Greek oSovr, and Latin dent. 



12. N before v silent. Thus the Latin convention, assembly, became 

 covention (as it occurs in one of the oldest inscriptions), before it was 

 reduced to contion, the assembly of the people, a word which most 

 modern editors, hi spite of all the best MSS. and of etymology, persist 

 in writing with a c for the fourth letter. Similarly from conventu came 

 the French convent : and though the English generally say convent, 

 yet the name Covent Garden is a proof that the n was not always 

 pronounced even here. 



An initial n is either prefixed to, or taken from, words by error. 

 Thus nadder, a snake, has now lost its n through a confusion of 

 the phrase a nadder with an adder. On the other hand, the phrase 

 for then once, that is, for this once, in which the article has its old 

 accusative form tlien, is now written for the nonce. It is in this way 

 that we should account for the prefixed in the diminutives Ned, 

 Nol, Nan, Nel, for Edmund or Howard, Oliver, Anne, Ellen, as if the 

 original phrases mine Ed, mine Anne, had been confounded with my Ned, 

 my Nan '! At any rate, mine, thine, an, were severally the original forms 

 of my, thy, a, and used even before consonants ; nay, in Somersetshire 

 they have changed aunt to ndnt, uncle to nuncle,_ awl to nawl. Very 

 similar is the prevailing error of calling the Greek negative particle 

 alpha privative instead of av privative ; the latter of which corres- 

 ponds so accurately with the Latin in and the English un, to say 

 nothing of the Greek avev, and the German ohne. In fact, n at the end 

 of words is often pronounced very faintly. 



The Somerset dialect has been referred 'to because its peculiarities 

 have been recorded with great care in Mr. Jennings' s ' Observations.' 



NABOB, or NABAB, a corruption of the Hindustani Nuwwab, which 

 was the title of the governor of a province under the Mogul empire, 

 such as the Nuwwab of Arcot, of Oude, &c. (Gilchrist, ' Vocabulary.') 

 Several of these gradually assumed an independent sovereignty during 

 the decline of the empire, and became either allies or dependents of the 

 Anglo-Indian government. The word Nabob is sometimes used in 

 Europe to mean a wealthy man who has made his fortune in India. 

 NABONASAR, ^ERA OF. [PERIODS OF REVOLUTION.] 

 NADIR. [ZENITH.] 



N^EVUS (Ncevus maternus, Mother Spot or Mole) is a congenital 

 mark or morbid growth on a part of the skin. Nrevi are of various 

 kinds ; some are merely yellowish or brown discolorations of the skin 

 without any evident alteration in its structure; but the greater 

 number are composed of an excessively vascular tissue, or a dense 

 network of arteries and veins forming a reddish or livid substance, 

 more or less elevated above the surface of the surrounding skin. A 

 third kind are like extensive warty excrescences, and many of them 

 are covered with thick-set coarse hair. 



The nsevi of the first kind rarely require treatment. Those of the 

 second are more important from their tendency to increase, or to 

 ulcerate and slough, or to produce severe haemorrhage by the rupture 

 of some of their vessels. Many plans have been suggested for their 

 removal. If they be not seated on an exposed part, or if they do not 

 show a tendency to increase, they had better be left without treat- 

 ment. In other cases, the simplest and sometimes a sufficient means 

 is the continued application of cold with moderately firm pressure ; 

 but a more certain method is to produce such an inflammation in them 

 as may obliterate their vessels and reduce them to the common 

 substance of scars. In small superficial nsevi this may be effected by 

 vaccinating them so as to produce a number of pustules on their 

 surface ; and in larger ones, by cauterising a part of their surface with 

 fused potash, or nitric acid, or nitrate of silver, or by injecting some 

 stimulant (as dilute nitric acid) into their tissue, or by making small 

 incisions into them, or by passing hare-lip pins and sutures [HARE- 

 LIP] through parts of their substance, or by placing setons in them. 

 The circumstances of each case must decide the choice between these 

 several means, and the mode hi which that which is selected may be 

 best ^applied. Should complete removal be deemed necessary, najvi 

 may be either cut out, or made to slough by tying them round the 

 base. For the third kind of warty nsevi, excision is at once the 

 simplest and most secure means. 



It is a popular belief that nsevi and some other malformations in 

 infants are consequent on an impression made on the mind of the 

 mother during pregnancy, and that the mark always bears some 

 resemblance to the object by which the impression was excited. It 

 cannot be denied, that among the many cases of nsevi, some singular 

 coincidences of the kind have occurred, and that in some of these the 



