Ne

A positive, pleasant, or attractive quality that is difficult to define or articulate. This French phrase translates literally as "I don't know what" in English, and is pronounced "jeh neh say kwa." She had a certain je ne sais quoi that men found quite attractive.

From Latin, literally, "not twice in the same," a legal doctrine which holds that legal action cannot be taken twice against someone for the same offense, a concept more commonly known as "double jeopardy." Yes, I know there's new evidence linking the chief financial officer to the embezzlement scheme, but he's already been tried for that. If we bring this new evidence against him now, the judge will toss it out on the ground of the "ne bis in idem" principle.

The peak or highest point (of something). The film is often considered the ne plus ultra of the director's oeuvre. To this day, her administration is considered the ne plus ultra of political scandal.

These two people, things, or groups are so fundamentally different from one another that they will never be able to coexist or think alike. Primarily heard in US. My best friend is a staunch conservative, while my brother is a hardcore liberal, and never the twain shall meet.

No more bets! From French, used by croupiers at a roulette table after the wheel has begun spinning. That's it, the spin has begun. Rien ne va plus!

People say never the twain shall meet or ne'er the twain shall meet when they believe that there are so many differences between two groups of people or two groups of things that they can never exist together. The British education system is notorious for separating the sciences and the humanities. This academic `ne'er the twain shall meet' policy does not always reflect the needs of the real world. Note: People often vary this expression. For example, they say that the twain should meet or the twain are not supposed to meet. Although they recognised differences between East and West, they went on to argue that the twain should and must meet. Note: `Twain' is an old-fashioned word meaning two. This is a quotation from `The Ballad of East and West' (1889) by the English poet Rudyard Kipling: `Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.'

Ultimate perfection, the highest point to which something can be brought. The words are Latin for “nothing further” and allegedly quoted an inscription on the Pillars of Hercules, in the Strait of Gibraltar, meant to prevent ships from going any farther. The term was taken over into English in the 1600s and with overuse became a cliché. For example, “In the fascination of young Russians for Western things, jeans are the ne plus ultra of the modish. . . .” (Collin Thubron, Among the Russians, 1983).

The highest point of excellence, acme. Loosely translated from the Latin for “there is no reason to go further,” the phrase is a synonym of “zenith.” A new car with all the most modern features that any buyer could wish for (or so the manufacturer claims) might be touted as the ne plus ultra of automobiles. Legend has it that “ne plus ultra”—in its literal sense—was inscribed on Gibraltar's Pillars of Hercules as a warning to mariners not to venture, depending on the direction in which they were sailing, into the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea.