List of English Words With Disputed Usage - N

N

• nauseous – Traditionally nauseous means "causing nausea" (synonymous with "nauseating"); it is commonly used now as a synonym for "queasy," that is, having the feeling of nausea. AHD4 notes the traditional view, stating that 72% of the Usage Panel preferred nauseated over nauseous to mean "affected with nausea"; however, 88% of that same panel preferred nauseating to nauseous to mean "causing nausea"; in other words, a maximum of only 28% prefers nauseous in either case. It also states that in common usage, nauseous is synonymous with nauseated, but deems this usage "incorrect". M-W, however, asserts that "hose who insist that nauseous ... is an error for nauseated are mistaken". Both M-W and AHD4 accept that nauseous is supplanting nauseated for "feeling nausea", and in turn being replaced by nauseating for "causing nausea" in general usage; they only differ on the correctness of the change. RH states "The two literal senses of nauseous appear in English at almost the same time in the early 17th century, and both senses are in standard use at the present time. Nauseous is more common than nauseated in the sense 'affected with nausea', despite recent objections by those who imagine the sense to be new." CHAMBERS lists the sense of causing nausea first and affected with nausea second, while COD11 gives the affliction first and causation second; both dictionaries list the entries without comment. OED goes further, tagging its "nauseated" usage as "Orig U.S.", but demoted its "nauseating" usage to "literary". OED also notes that the original (now obsolete) sense of the word in English was "inclined to sickness or nausea; squeamish". Curiously, this oldest seventeenth-century meaning (inclined to nausea), while distinct from the disputed twentieth-century usage (afflicted by nausea), more closely resembles the latter than it does the prescribed meaning (causing nausea).
  • Undisputed usage: That smell is nauseous.
  • Disputed usage: That smell is making me nauseous.
  • Undisputed usage: That smell is nauseating.
  • Undisputed usage: That smell is making me nauseated.