From Middle English neyghebour, neighebor, neighbour, neihebur, from Old English nēahġebūr, from Proto-Germanic *nēhwagabūrô, equivalent to .

Eclipsed non-native Middle English prome (“neighbour”), borrowed from Old French proeme, proime, proisme.

• (RP) IPA: /ˈneɪbə/
• (America) IPA: /ˈneɪbɚ/

neighbour (plural neighbours) (British spelling)

1. A person living on adjacent or nearby land; a person situated adjacently or nearby; anything (of the same type of thing as the subject) in an adjacent or nearby position.

   My neighbour has two noisy cats.

   They′re our neighbours across the street.

   • 1660, Hugh Peters, The Tales and Jests of Mr. Hugh Peters, reprinted 1807, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=85dCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA10&dq=%22neighbour%22|%22neighbours%22+-intitle:%22neighbour|neighbours%22+-inauthor:%22neighbour%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4UW-T_nxAsPFmAXYjfFE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22neighbour%22|%22neighbours%22%20-intitle%3A%22neighbour|neighbours%22%20-inauthor%3A%22neighbour%22&f=false page 10],

     Being at his own house in the country, when a great tempest of wind rose, he takes an occasion to visit a neighbour by him, and being somewhat merily disposed, quoth he Oh neighbour, did you not see what a wind there was the other day?

   • 2009, D. Staufer, Classical Percolation, Asok K. Sen, Kamal K. Bardhan, Bikas K. Chakrabarti (editors), Quantum and Semi-Classical Percolation and Breakdown in Disordered Solids, Springer, Lecture Notes in Physics 762, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ptpcJs0_IM0C&pg=PA4&dq=%22neighbour%22|%22neighbours%22+-intitle:%22neighbour|neighbours%22+-inauthor:%22neighbour%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4UW-T_nxAsPFmAXYjfFE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22neighbour%22|%22neighbours%22%20-intitle%3A%22neighbour|neighbours%22%20-inauthor%3A%22neighbour%22&f=false page 4],

     Then a cluster is grown by letting each empty neighbour of an already occupied cluster site decide once and for all, whether it is occupied or empty. One needs to keep and to update a perimeter list of empty neighbours.

   • 2011, Richard Jensen, Chris Cornelis, "Fuzzy-Rough Nearest Neighbour Classification", James F. Peters, Andrzej Skowron (editors-in-chief), Transactions on Rough Sets XIII, Springer, Lecture Notes in Computing Science 6499, [http://books.google.com.au/books?id=JWunswcHc-YC&pg=PA56&dq=%22neighbour%22|%22neighbours%22+-intitle:%22neighbour|neighbours%22+-inauthor:%22neighbour%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4UW-T_nxAsPFmAXYjfFE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22neighbour%22|%22neighbours%22%20-intitle%3A%22neighbour|neighbours%22%20-inauthor%3A%22neighbour%22&f=false page 56],

     By contrast to the latter, our method uses the nearest neighbours to construct lower and upper approximations of decision classes, and classifies test instances based on their membership to these approximations.

2. One who is near in sympathy or confidence.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene ii]:

     Buckingham / No more shall be the neighbour to my counsel.

3. (biblical) A fellow human being.
   • 1982, New King James Version, Leviticus 19:18,

     You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

4. Anything located directly adjacent to something else.

   The flood fill algorithm fills an area with colour by starting at one pixel and recursively visiting its neighbours.

• bydweller
• (Christian sense) fellow human being, fellow, fellow man

• (antonym(s) of “biblical”): stranger, foreigner

• French: voisin, voisine
• German: Nachbar, Nachbarin
• Italian: vicino, vicina
• Portuguese: vizinho, vizinha
• Russian: сосе́д
• Spanish: vecino, vecina

• French: prochain, prochaine
• German: Nächster, Nächste, Mitmensch
• Italian: prossimo
• Portuguese: próximo, próxima
• Russian: бли́жний
• Spanish: prójimo, prójima

neighbour (neighbours, present participle neighbouring; simple past and past participle neighboured) (British spelling)

1. (transitive) To be adjacent to

   Though France neighbours Germany, its culture is significantly different.

   • 1615, George Sandys, “The First Booke”, in The Relation of a Iourney Begun An: Dom: 1610. […], London: […] [Richard Field] for W. Barrett, →OCLC ↗, page 12 ↗:

     Theſe grow at the South end of the Iland, and on the leiſurely aſcending hills that neighbour the ſhore.

2. (intransitive, followed by "on"; figurative) To be similar to, to be almost the same as.

   That sort of talk is neighbouring on treason.

3. To associate intimately with; to be close to.
   • c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i] ↗:

     […] the barbarous Scythyan, […] / Shall bee as well neighbour’d, pittyed and relieued / As thou my ſometime daughter.

• Portuguese: vizinhar com
• Russian: соседствовать