nesh

• IPA^(key): /nɛʃ/
• Rhymes: -ɛʃ

From Middle English nesh, nesch, nesche, from Old English hnesce, hnysce, hnæsce (“soft, tender, mild; weak, delicate; slack, negligent; effeminate, wanton”), from Proto-Germanic *hnaskuz (“soft, tender”), from Proto-Indo-European *knēs-, *kenes- (“to scratch, scrape, rub”). Cognate with Scots nesch, nesh (“soft, tender, yielding easily to pressure, sensitive”), Dutch nesch, nes (“wet, moist”), Gothic 𐌷𐌽𐌰𐍃𐌵𐌿𐍃 (hnasqus, “soft, tender, delicate”). Compare also nask, nasky, nasty.

• nish (Newfoundland English)

nesh (comparative nesher, superlative neshest)

1. (now Britain dialectal) Soft; tender; sensitive; yielding.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter xx, in Le Morte Darthur, book XIII:

     haue ye no merueylle sayd the good man therof / for hit semeth wel god loueth yow / for men maye vnderstande a stone is hard of kynde / […] / for thou wylt not leue thy synne for no goodnes that god hath sente the / therfor thou arte more than ony stone / and neuer woldest thow be maade neysshe nor by water nor by fyre

2. (now Britain dialectal) Delicate; weak; poor-spirited; susceptible to cold weather, harsh conditions etc.
   • 1887, Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders, Chapter 4:

     And if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding-school, he'll make her as nesh as her mother was.

   • 1913, D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, Chapter 8:

     No, tha'd drop down stiff, as dead as a door-knob, wi' thy nesh sides.

3. (now Britain dialectal) Soft; friable; crumbly.

• This is a fairly widespread dialect term throughout Northern England and the Midlands.

• neshen
• neshness

From Middle English neschen, from Old English hnescan, hnescian (“to make soft, soften; become soft, give way, waver”), from Proto-Germanic *hnaskōną, *hnaskijaną (“to make soft”), from Proto-Indo-European *knēs-, *kenes- (“to scratch, scrape, rub”). Cognate with Old High German nascōn ("to nibble at, parasitise, squander"; > German naschen (“to nibble, pinch”)).

nesh (third-person singular simple present neshes, present participle neshing, simple past and past participle neshed)

1. (transitive) To make soft, tender, or weak.
2. (intransitive, dialectal, Northern England) To act timidly.

• Shen, hens