くもなんともない・
A flat rejection: "not … in the least", "no … at all". Someone has assumed a thing is fun, painful or true, or called a person something, and you throw the idea out.
It's all right. This injection doesn't hurt a bit.
He's no expert, or anything like one.
い-adjective
い-adjective stem + くもなんともない
怖い → 怖くもなんともない. たい goes the same way: 行きたくもなんともない.
Noun, な-adjective
Noun／な-adjective + でもなんでもない
友達でもなんでもない, 特別でもなんでもない. After a な-adjective people also say でもなんともない: 好きでもなんともない.
- Often answers
- What someone has just said or assumed.
- How it sounds
- Emphatic, sometimes heated. It can reassure, defend you, or brush a person off.
- Often with
- 別に, なんて.
- Where you'll meet it
- Conversation, the dialogue in novels and dramas, and essays that argue a point. Out of place in a report.
In use
Are you really not jealous of him?
No. I'm not jealous in the slightest.
A can't believe B isn't jealous. B throws the idea out.
That person you were talking to just now, a friend of yours?
Him? He's not a friend of mine or anything.
That isn't kindness, or anything like it. They just want to control the other person.
When I was a child, thunder didn't scare me in the slightest.
More than a plain negative
This film isn't interesting.
Your opinion, plainly.
This film isn't interesting in the least.
Someone said it was good, or you had hoped so. You reject that outright.
Close neighbours
全然～ないN5
The everyday "not at all", on any negative, verbs too. It says how much: none. くもなんともない answers someone.
It isn't cold at all today.
The same flat denial for a verb: it certainly won't happen.
He forgot his promise, you say? He'd never forget.
Check yourself
1Which one fits?
彼は
Choose an answer to see why.
2What is B saying?
A
Choose an answer to see why.
More detail
On their own, なんでもない is "it's nothing" and なんともない is "I'm fine". Nothing is being rejected.
No, it's nothing. Don't worry about it.
More sentences
Right now I don't feel like eating anything sweet at all.
A failure this small is nothing to be embarrassed about.
There's nothing special about it. It's just something I do every day.
That rumor isn't a fact, or anything close to one.
Even when I first started living alone, I wasn't lonely in the slightest.