NagervsnagtWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Nager is a noun, nagt is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Nager” is a noun and “nagt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,815
“Nager” frequency rank
#44,816
“nagt” frequency rank
89631
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Nager nagt
Definition Säugetier (Ordnung Rodentia) mit langen, ständig nachwachsenden Schneidezähnen 2. Person Plural Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs nagen

Where the eye mixes Nager and nagt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Nager runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against nagt's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Nager
4 ch
nagt

Visual trap between Nager and nagt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Nager is [ˈnaːɡɐ] while nagt is [naːkt]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 89631, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Nager is recorded at frequency rank #44,815, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈnaːɡɐ]. nagt is at rank #44,816, tagged as averb, pronounced [naːkt].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 89631, this pair ranks #55,214 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Nager vs nagt

Shared letters: agn. Private to "Nager": er. Private to "nagt": t.

"Nager" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "nagt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Nager ← naegr · nagerr · nagger · nagre · ngaer · nnager
  • nagt ← angt · naggt · nagtt · natg · ngat · nnagt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Nager" for "nagt" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Nager" is a noun and "nagt" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Nager" or "nagt" show up more?
"Nager" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,815 in our German list, against #44,816 for "nagt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Nager" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nagt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #55,214 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Nager" and "nagt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nagen vs nagt". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #55,214 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list