nixie
A female nix, a water-spirit.
Noun
- A female nix, a water-spirit.
- The beautiful Nix or Nixie who allures the young fisher or hunter to seek her embraces in the wave which brings his death, the Neck who seizes upon and drowns the maidens who sport upon his banks, the river-spirit who...
- The place seems to have been fashioned as a dwelling for dryads and hamadryads, for nixies and pixies, and all the fabled spirits of forest and stream. - 1916, Rex Beach, Rainbow's End, published 2008, page 1:
- Bare from her garters up her flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie’s green. - 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
Origin
From German Nixe, feminine of Nix, from Middle High German nickes, from Old High German nihhus (“water-elf, crocodile”), from Proto-Germanic *nikwus, *nikwis, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *neygʷ- (“to wash”). Cognate with Old English nicor (“water-elf, hippopotamus, walrus”), English nicker.
Forms
Noun Entry 2
- A piece of mail returned as undeliverable.
- Mailers who are registered participants in the Postal Service's Address Change Service (ACS) system expect to receive their address corrections and nixie notifications by electronic messages;[…]. - 1994 March 3, Postal...
- If you get a response of less than one percent or excessive “nixies” (wrong addresses), rework your copy or get a new list. - 2003, Jenkins Group, The Insiders Guide to Large Quantity Book Sales, page 7:
- Another good reason to use first-class mail is the fact that it will often be forwarded or, if need be, returned to the sender if the address is bad. (In the industry, this is called a “nixie.”) It is important to keep...
Origin
Etymology tree English nix English -ie English nixie From nix + -ie.