Nun (נ) means nothing happens. You don't take anything and you don't put anything in. Your turn is over and the dreidel moves to the next player. Nun stands for Nes, the Hebrew word for "miracle."
Nun in the game
Nun is the "nothing" spin. No gelt moves. You hand the dreidel to the next person and that's it.
People tend to treat Nun as a letdown, but it really isn't. You didn't win anything, sure, but you didn't lose anything either, and that's better than a Shin. Think of it as a free pass.
Like every letter on a fair dreidel, Nun comes up about 1 in 4 spins.
What Nun stands for
Nun is the first letter of נס, Nes, which means "miracle." It starts the phrase Nes Gadol Haya Sham, "A great miracle happened there." It's the same in Israel, where only the last letter changes.
In Yiddish, Nun lines up with nisht, "nothing," which is exactly what it does in the game. The German version of the old spinning-top game used N for Nichts, which also means nothing. More on that on our letters page.
How to recognize Nun
Nun looks like a skinny backwards C with square corners. There's a short stroke on top, a straight line down the right side, and a flat base running to the left.
The letter people confuse it with is Gimel (ג). Look at the bottom: Nun has a full flat base, while Gimel just has a little foot kicking out.
Fun facts about Nun
- Nun is the 14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
- Its number value is 50.
- It changes shape at the end of a word. The final Nun (ן) is just a long straight line that drops below the others.
Updated October 2026