NEVER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does never mean? 

• NEVER (adverb)
  The adverb NEVER has 2 senses:

1. not ever; at no time in the past or future

2. not at all; certainly not; not in any circumstances

  Familiarity information: NEVER used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NEVER (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not ever; at no time in the past or future

Synonyms:

ne'er; never

Context example:

I will never marry you!

Antonym:

ever (at all times; all the time and on every occasion)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not at all; certainly not; not in any circumstances

Context example:

what is morally wrong can never be politically right

 Context examples 

"I never killed anything, willingly," she sobbed.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

Though never permitted by his mother to approach that wall, he had approached the other walls, and encountered hard obstruction on the end of his tender nose.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I don’t know how that may be, said she; never is a long time.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

It’s funny, a check I wrote five months ago to someone who works for me never arrived (and of course, I sent a replacement within ten days).

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

I never giv him no name.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They would never get another rope around his neck. Upon that he was resolved.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

She should never have been put to sea.

(UK documentary claims fire weakened RMS Titanic, Wikinews)

I've never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Others have symptoms that never go away.

(Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, NIH: National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases)

Many members are active cysteine protease inhibitors; others have lost or never acquired inhibitory activity.

(Kininogen Family Gene, NCI Thesaurus)