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PlainSpell

nearby

/ˌnɪə(ɹ)ˈbaɪ/adjective, adverb, noun

nearby is an adjective meaning “Adjacent, near, close by” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled N-E-A-R-B-Y and has 2 syllables, and it appears 35 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does nearby mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Adjacent, near, close by.

    He stopped at a nearby store for some groceries.

adverb

  1. 1

    Next to, close to.

    I'm glad my friends live nearby where I can visit them.

noun

  1. 1

    A futures contract, of a particular group, whose settlement date is the earliest.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce nearby?

  • /ˌnɪə(ɹ)ˈbaɪ/

Nearby has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-nearby.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of nearby

  • more nearby comparative
  • most nearby superlative
  • near-by
  • near by
  • nearbys plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is nearby?

Nearby appears 35 times per million words in written English, the 2,725th 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).

Words people confuse with nearby

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

near-by vs nearby260 G

Also written: near-by (one word or two).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Nearby in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchproche (adjacent), à proximité (close to)
Germannahe gelegen (adjacent), nebenan, in der Nähe, nah (close to)
Portuguesepróximo (adjacent), por perto (close to)
Spanishcercano, próximo, concercano (adjacent), cerca (close to)

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 nearby come from?

From Middle English ner-bi, neer by, equivalent to near + by.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).