next

• neest (dialectal)
• neist (Scotland)
• nex' (dialectal)

From Middle English nexte, nexste, nixte, from Old English nīehsta, nīehste, etc., inflected forms of nīehst (“nearest, next”), superlative form of nēah (“nigh, near”), corresponding to Proto-Germanic *nēhwist (“nearest, closest”); equivalent to nigh +‎ -est. Cognate with Saterland Frisian naist (“next”), Dutch naast (“next”), German nächst (“next”), Danish næste (“next”), Swedish näst (“next”), Icelandic næst (“next”), Persian نزد‎ (nazd, “near, with”).

• enPR: nĕkst, IPA^(key): /nɛkst/

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• Rhymes: -ɛkst

next (not comparable)

1. Nearest in place or position, having nothing similar intervening; adjoining.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Philander went into the next room, which was just a lean-to hitched on to the end of the shanty, and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm.

   1. (obsolete) Most direct, or shortest or nearest in distance or time.
      • 1623, William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well:

        A prophet I, Madam; and I speak the truth the next way: [...]

      • 1777, Francis Quarles, Emblems Divine and Moral: Together with Hieroglyphics of the Life of Man, page 152, epigram 2:

        The road to resolution, lies by doubt:

        "The next way home's the farthest way about."

2. Nearest in order, succession, or rank; immediately following (or sometimes preceding) in order.

   the next chapter; the next man I see; the next week; the Sunday next before Easter

   • 1676, Pietro Soave Polano, The History of the Council of Trent ..., page 689:

     The next day, which was the next before the Session, a General Congregation was held, [...]

   • 2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     [Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.

3. (figuratively) Following in a hypothetical sequence of some kind.
   • 1945, Yank: the army weekly, volume 4, page 96:

     " […] You patriotic?" / "I guess so, as much as the next guy," I said, wondering how the hell I could shake him.

4. (chiefly law) Nearest in relationship. (See also next of kin.)

   next friend

   • 1628, Coke, On Littleton (10. a. 10. b. §2), quoted in 1890, John Bethell Uhle, Current Comment and Legal Miscellany, page 250:

     And if a man purchase land in fee simple and die without issue, he which is his next cousin collaterall of the whole blood, how farre so ever he be from him in degree, (de quel pluis long degree qu'il soit), may inherite and have the land ...

   • 1793, William Peere Williams, Samuel Compton Cox, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Chancery, and of Some Special Cases Adjudged in the Court of King's Bench [1695-1735], De Term. S. Trin. 1731, page 602:

     Thomas Humphrey Doleman died the 30th of August 1712, an infant, intestate and without issue; Lewis the next nephew died the 17th of April 1716, an infant about sixteen years old, having left his mother Mary Webb, ...

   • 1874, Thomas Sergeant, William Rawle, Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, page 23:

     If it be a property, it is a new species, unknown to the civil law, the common law, and the statute law; there is no medium, it must be, if it goes to her next kin, because it is absolute property in her. There can be no distribution of personal property ...

• (nearest in order): See also Thesaurus:former or Thesaurus:subsequent

• previous
• (closest to seven days ahead): last, this

next

1. The one immediately following the current or most recent one

   Next week would be a good time to meet.

   I'll know better next time.

2. Closest to seven days (one week) in the future.

   The party is next Tuesday; that is, not this Tuesday, but nine days from now.

next (not comparable)

1. In a time, place, rank or sequence closest or following.

   They live in the next closest house.

   Next, we stripped off the old paint.

   Who is next after Henry gives his presentation?

   It's the next best thing to ice cream.

2. On the first subsequent occasion.

   Financial panic, earthquakes, oil spills, riots. What comes next?

   When we next meet, you'll be married.

• previously

next

1. On the side of; nearest or adjacent to; next to.
   • 1900, The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices, translated by Walter Leaf (London, Macmillan), notes on line 558 of book 2:

     The fact that the line cannot be original is patent from the fact that Aias in the rest of the Iliad is not encamped next the Athenians […] .

next (uncountable)

1. The one that follows after this one.

   Next, please, don't hold up the queue!

   • 2007, Steve Cohen, Next Stop Hollywood (St. Martin's Griffin, →ISBN):

     There is no time for lunch, hauling myself from one place to the next.

• IPA^(key): /ˈnɛxt/

next m

1. A bride price (among Kurds, customarily given to the family of the bride by the family of the groom)

• qelen