The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 4 letter word NOUN
I've seen this crossword clue in The Times
N
O
U
N
More clues leading to the result NOUN
- Sister admits nothing? That could be proper
- Word no peacekeepers needed
- Part of speech from woman in order to secure Oscar
- No-one at Cannes that could be common
- Something possibly common in journo, unfortunately
- Part of speech advocating abolition of New York body
- Never a French grammatical term
- Sister hides ring that’s substantive
- Verb or adjective, say, as part of speech
- Word of love harboured by religious woman
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Word" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case word = noun.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does NOUN mean?
NOUN noun- (grammar, narrow sense) A word that can be used to refer to a person, animal, place, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality, or idea; one of the basic parts of speech in many languages, including English.
- (grammar, now rare, broad sense) Either a word that can be used to refer to a person, animal, place, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality or idea, or a word that modifies or describes a previous word or its referent; a substantive or adjective, sometimes also including other parts of speech such as numeral or pronoun.
- To convert a word to a noun.