nie ma

See also: niema and niemą

Polish

Alternative forms

• niema (pre-reform orthography (1936))
• nie masz (archaic)

Etymology

Clipping of nie masz. First attested in the first half of the 20th century. Displaced Old Polish nietu.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɲɛ.ma/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛma
• Syllabification: [please specify syllabification manually]
• Homophone: niema

Phrase

nie ma (past nie było, future nie będzie)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see nie,‎ ma. [with genitive]

   On nie ma czasu. ― He doesn't have time.

2. (idiomatic) to be gone, to not be present, to not exist, there is no [with genitive]

   Nie ma chleba. ― There is no bread.

   Nie ma mowy! ― No way! (literally, “There is no speech!”)

   Nigdy nikogo nie ma w domu. ― Never is there anyone home.

Usage notes

(1): is entirely regular.

(2): is only irregular in the present tense, all other forms are a combination of nie and być (appropriately conjugated), as follows: there wasn't → nie było; there won't be → nie będzie; there wouldn't be → nie byłoby.

Derived terms

phrases

• nie ma dymu bez ognia
• nie ma miejsca
• nie ma za co

 

Trivia

According to Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990), nie ma is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 33 times in scientific texts, 4 times in news, 35 times in essays, 80 times in fiction, and 152 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 304 times, making it the 166th most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.

Further reading

• nie ma in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• nie ma in Polish dictionaries at PWN