neck and neck
n · adverb
Simple meaning
A collaborative album by American guitarist Chet Atkins and British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler, released on October 9, 1990, by Columbia Records.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nehkuhndnekSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnɛkəndnɛk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
n
A collaborative album by American guitarist Chet Atkins and British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler, released on October 9, 1990, by Columbia Records.
A 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by Richard Thorpe from a script by Betty Burbridge and starring Glenn Tryon, Vera Reynolds and Walter Brennan.
adverb
Even or close in a race or competition or comparison
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A collaborative album by American guitarist Chet Atkins and British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler, released on October 9, 1990, by Columbia Records.
Used this way, neck and neck is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.