diff --git a/package/CHANGELOG b/package/CHANGELOG
index f409baf75ef..dc16ae96fe8 100644
--- a/package/CHANGELOG
+++ b/package/CHANGELOG
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ The rules for this file:
   * release numbers follow "Semantic Versioning" http://semver.org
 
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-??/??/?? IAlibay
+??/??/?? IAlibay, hmacdope
 
  * 2.7.0
 
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ Fixes
 Enhancements
 
 Changes
+  * Cython DEF statments have been replaced with compile time integer constants
+    as DEF is deprecated as of Cython>=3.0 (Issue #4237, PR #4246)
 
 Deprecations
 
diff --git a/package/MDAnalysis/lib/nsgrid.pyx b/package/MDAnalysis/lib/nsgrid.pyx
index 3782f96520b..a4e245e884e 100644
--- a/package/MDAnalysis/lib/nsgrid.pyx
+++ b/package/MDAnalysis/lib/nsgrid.pyx
@@ -83,18 +83,18 @@ import numpy as np
 from libcpp.vector cimport vector
 from libc cimport math
 
-DEF END = -1
+cdef int END = -1
 
-DEF XX = 0
-DEF XY = 3
-DEF YY = 4
-DEF XZ = 6
-DEF YZ = 7
-DEF ZZ = 8
+cdef int XX = 0
+cdef int XY = 3
+cdef int YY = 4
+cdef int XZ = 6
+cdef int YZ = 7
+cdef int ZZ = 8
 
 # Cube root of the maximum size of a 32 bit signed integer. If the system is divided into more
 # grids than this, integer overflow will occur.
-DEF MAX_GRID_DIM = 1290
+cdef int  MAX_GRID_DIM = 1290
 
 ctypedef float coordinate[3]