néant
French, noun/ne.ɑ̃/
néant is spelled N-É-A-N-T (5 letters) and appears 5.4 times per million words in written French, the 10,655th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Néant is a French masculine noun meaning “nothingness, void, emptiness” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “État d’inexistence des êtres et des choses”.
What does néant mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinenothingness, void, emptiness
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. État d’inexistence des êtres et des choses. 2. … 3. Personne jugée sans valeur et sans intérêt. 4. Ce qui, par soi-même, n’a aucune valeur réelle.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of néant
- néants plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce néant?
- /ne.ɑ̃/
- \ne.ɑ̃\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to néant
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is néant in French?
néant appears 5.4 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).