nabla
noun
nabla is a noun meaning “A Hebrew stringed instrument” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled N-A-B-L-A, and it appears about once in every 71 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of nabla is nablas.
What does nabla mean?
noun
- 1
A Hebrew stringed instrument.
- 2
The symbol ∇, used to denote the gradient operator.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of nabla
- nablas plural
- nevel
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is nabla?
Nabla appears about once in every 71 million words in written English, the 265,644th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Nabla in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense symbol:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Nabla |
| Portuguese | nabla |
| Spanish | nabla |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does nabla come from?
From Latin nabla, from Ancient Greek νάβλα (nábla, “Phoenician harp”), from ancient Hebrew נֵבֶל (nḗḇel) or a Phoenician cognate. Doublet of nebel, which comes via the modern Hebrew נֵ֤בֶל.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).