[ney-ber-ing] 
| situated or living near; adjacent: to visit the neighboring towns. |
[ney-ber] | 1. | a person who lives near another. |
| 2. | a person or thing that is near another. |
| 3. | one's fellow human being: to be generous toward one's less fortunate neighbors. |
| 4. | a person who shows kindliness or helpfulness toward his or her fellow humans: to be a neighbor to someone in distress. |
| 5. | (used as a term of address, esp. as a friendly greeting to a stranger): Tell me, neighbor, which way to town? |
| 6. | situated or living near another: one of our neighbor nations. |
| 7. | to live or be situated near to; adjoin; border on. |
| 8. | to place or bring near. |
| 9. | to live or be situated nearby. |
| 10. | to associate with or as if with one's neighbors; be neighborly or friendly (often fol. by with). |
| neigh·bor (nā'bər) n.
v. tr. To lie close to or border directly on. v. intr. To live or be situated close by. adj. Situated or living near another: a neighbor state. [Middle English neighebor, from Old English nēahgebūr : nēah, near + gebūr, dweller; see bheuə- in Indo-European roots.] Word History: Loving one's neighbor as oneself would be much easier, or perhaps much more difficult, if the word neighbor had kept to its etymological meaning. The source of our word, the assumed West Germanic form *nāhgabūr, was a compound of the words *nēhwiz, "near," and *būram, "dweller, especially a farmer." A neighbor, then, was a near dweller. Nēahgebūr, the Old English descendant of this West Germanic word, and its descendant in Middle English, neighebor, and our Modern English neighbor have all retained the literal notion, even though one can now have many neighbors whom one does not know, a situation that would have been highly unlikely in earlier times. The extension of this word to mean "fellow" is probably attributable to the Christian concern with the treatment of one's fellow humans, as in the passage in Matthew 19:19 that urges love of one's neighbor. |
bər