never mind
- 1Used to reassure or comfort someone, telling them that something is not important and that they should not fret.
“I forgot to bring the cake.” “Never mind, we have plenty of cookies.”
Never mind, sweetheart, you'll do better on the next test.
Note
It is the usual reply to an apology or a small mishap, and it tends to bring a reason or a remedy with it: never mind, it was old anyway; never mind, I'll put a bandage on it. Parents and friends use it as comfort, sometimes with an endearment attached, as in never mind, sweetheart.
- 2Used to withdraw or take back something one has just said.
Could you grab me a coffee? Oh, never mind, I'll get it myself.
Is the meeting at three? Never mind, I just found the email.
Note
Speakers use it to cancel their own words, either because they have changed their minds (wait, never mind, give me the fire extinguisher instead) or because they would rather not repeat something: What did you call me? Never mind. The second kind can sound evasive or curt. Online it can trail a remark as an ironic retraction: divorce is so funny. like never mind.
- 3Used to tell someone not to be concerned about a person or thing, or about doing something.
Never mind about the dishes; I'll do them in the morning.
Never mind the cost, just get the car fixed before winter.
Similarforget, ignore, disregard
Note
What not to worry about can follow directly or after about: never mind the cost, never mind about me. An action takes the -ing form, as in never mind about paying me back, and the speaker often goes on to say what will happen instead: you go and I'll join you later.
- 4Used after a negative statement to introduce something even less likely or possible.
He can't boil an egg, never mind cook a whole dinner.
The town can barely afford to fix its roads, never mind build a new stadium.
Note
After a negative, or a word like rarely or barely, it introduces the still less likely case, so the bigger claim comes second: he can't boil an egg, never mind cook a whole dinner. What follows can be a noun, a bare verb or an -ing form, as in never mind a superpower or never mind spending an entire day there. Let alone works the same way.
- 5Alternative form of nevermind.
Whether we leave tonight or tomorrow makes no never mind to me.
Pay him no never mind; he's always grumpy before his coffee.
Note
Written as two words or one, the noun belongs to regional American speech and turns up mostly in negative frames: it makes no never mind (no difference), pay him no never mind (no attention), none of your never mind (none of your concern). Dana Stabenow's Fire and Ice (1998) has "close enough in spirit as to make no never mind."
Practice
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