nobody
(ˈnəʊbədɪ)
[f. no a. + body n. 13.
Written as two words from the 14th to the 18th c., and with hyphen in the 17th and 18th.]
1. a. No person; no one.
| 1338 R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 183 No body bot he alone vnto þe Cristen cam. 1484 Caxton Fables of Alfonce xi, I wyll wel, yf thow wilt swere that thou shalt neuer reherce it to no body. c 1489 ― Sonnes of Aymon iv. 120 And thenne the foure brethern wente vp to the hall, and met wyth noo bodi. 1535 Coverdale 2 Kings vii. 5 And whan they came to the vttemost ende of y⊇ tentes, beholde, there was no body. 1568 Grafton Chron. II. 268 There was no body in them, but two fayre Damoselles. 1621 S. Ward Life of Faith 8 Hee ingrosseth the common God to himselfe, as if his and no bodies else. 1663 Cowley Ess., Obscurity, In Places where they are by no body known. 1693 Norris Pract. Disc. (1698) IV. 10 That a thing that is so much every Body's Concern, should be almost no Body's Discourse. 1721 Amherst Terræ Fil. No. 40. 210 The advantages..are so palpable, that, at the bare mention of it, no body can be at a loss to perceive them. 1754 Sherlock Disc. I. iii. (1759) 135 Mysteries... Things which no-body can under⁓stand. 1791 Mrs. Radcliffe Rom. Forest x, Your father nor nobody else has ever sent after you. 1813 Wellington in Gurw. Desp. (1838) XI. 136, I can send..nobody from hence to relieve you. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. xvi. 108 Nobody knew anything of the state of the snow this year. 1885 Manch. Exam. 6 Nov. 5/3 The effort to please every⁓body usually results in pleasing nobody. |
| Prov. 1611 Cotgrave Dict. s.v. Ouvrage, Euerie bodies worke is no bodies worke. 1661 Walton Angler (ed. 3) ii. 52 A wise friend of mine did usually say, That which is every bodies businesse is no bodies businesse. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 18 ¶1 Because a Thing is every Body's Business, it is no Body's Business. 1725 Defoe (title) Every-body's business is no-body's business. 1828 Macaulay in Edin. Rev. Sept. 103 The business of every body is the business of nobody. 1829 Cobbett Advice to Young Men vi. 345 Public property is never so well taken care of as private property; and this, too, on the maxim, that ‘that which is every body's business is no [sic] nobody's business’. |
b. Followed by
they,
their, or
them.
| 1548 Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Luke 94 b, No bodye will receiue you into their house. 1628 tr. Mathieu's Powerfull Favorite 108 No body should dare to stretch out their arme, or present their bosome to receiue him. 1704 N. N. tr. Boccalini's Advts. fr. Parnass. II. 13 Such Confusion, that no body knew what they were to do, or what to let alone. 1755 Warburton in W. & Hurd Lett. (1809) 201 Nobody has yet written against me, but at their own expence. 1831 Whewell in Todhunter Life II. 112 Nobody will know the origin of pliocene, &c., till you tell them. 1856 F. E. Paget Owlet of Owlst. 9 Nobody likes to be turned out of quarters where they have lived snugly and comfortably for scores of years. 1874 L. Stephen Hours in Library III. 333 Nobody ever put so much of themselves into their work. |
2. a. A person, or persons, of no importance, authority, or social position. Phr.
nobody's business (see
business 16 f);
nobody's fool, a person who cannot be taken advantage of.
| 1581 G. Pettie tr. Guazzo's Civ. Conv. ii. (1586) 58 Let them come to writing any thing, and they are no bodie. 1599 Broughton's Let. vii. 21 To accompt all besides themselues..babish,..rifraffe, nobodie. 1607 Hieron Wks. I. 170 If another had risen by him, and come from no body to be a man of some fashion and ability. 1608 Willet Hexapla Exod. Ded. 2 Others being of sound iudgement in the new Testament, are no bodie in the olde. 1778 Burney Evelina lxiv, Since I, as Mr. Lovel says, am Nobody, I seated myself quietly. 1797 Godwin Enquirer i. viii. 66 A child usually feels that he is nobody. 1839 Spirit of Times 8 June 163/1 As to eating, jist go to Snowden's, and the way you can git good things is nobody's business. 1847 F. A. Kemble Later Life III. 335 Miss ―, being only a banker's daughter, was of course ‘nobody’. 1871 Blackie Phases Mor. 6 According to our aristocratic way of talking, she was nobody. 1923 H. C. Witwer Fighting Blood xi. 323 He's a little too big..for us... And, another thing, Ryan is nobody's fool. 1940 N. Marsh Surfeit of Lampreys (1941) xv. 232 They've displayed a surprising virtuosity. They're nobody's fools. 1942 [see death n. 17 c]. 1956 Times 12 Sept. 1 What she could do with a pencil, notebook, and typewriter was simply nobody's business. 1959 ‘A. Fraser’ High Tension x. 103 He smiled slightly, and I made a note that he was nobody's fool. 1962 ‘E. Peters’ Funeral of Figaro i. 32 ‘He can sing like nobody's business,’ said Stoker positively. 1975 Times 20 Sept. 9/7 Poirot..adds..‘Never do I pull the leg.’ That, alas, is not true. He teased poor Hastings like nobody's business. |
b. Similarly with
a and
pl.| 1583 T. Stocker Civ. Wars Low C. iv. 6 Persones..by whom the true enheritors..are disturbed, made no bodies, or vtterly disenherited. 1657 Trapp Comm. Neh. iv. 4 We are..nullified, as a company of No-bodies. 1770 Foote Lame Lover i. Wks. 1799 II. 59 There are..in this town a great number of nobodies. 1807 Sporting Mag. XXIX. 239 The nobodies were never above a day behind in their imitations. 1856 Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh v. 280 Being wronged by some five hundred nobodies. 1886 G. Meredith Let. 15 Nov. (1970) II. 838 In origin I am what is called here a nobody. 1899 Educ. Rev. Oct. 222 Which exasperates somebodies who feel they are treated as nobodies. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 316 And who was he, tell us? A nobody. 1950 G. B. Shaw Farfetched Fables 67, I replied that if he did not realize that without them he would be a nobody he was no gentleman. 1961 New Eng. Bible 2 Cor. xii. 11 In no respect did I fall short of these superlative apostles, even if I am a nobody. 1975 Listener 4 Dec. 752/2 Out there, he could become a ‘somebody’; in London, he felt he was a ‘nobody’. |
3. nobody-crab, a marine arachnid of the order Pantopoda (or Pycnogonida), having a small body and four pairs of very long, thin legs;
= pycnogonid (
s.v. pycno-),
sea spider 1 b.
| 1881 [see pycnogonid s.v. pycno-]. 1935 Discovery Sept. 282/1 Those queer creatures the Pycnogonida, the so-called No-body Crabs, real Tom Noddies, with only enough body to hold together the legs, in which are situated the vital organs. 1945 T. H. Savory Spiders Brit. Isles (ed. 2) 20 Sea-spiders or nobody-crabs are found only in the sea, where they range from the littoral regions to the depths of the ocean. |
Hence
ˈnobodyness, anonymity.
rare—1.
| 1886 Rees Pleasures Book-Worm v. 176 By far too many ‘stabs in the dark’ are inflicted under cover of editorial nobodyness. |