NagervsnäherWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Nager is a noun, näher is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#44,815
“Nager” frequency rank
#1,564
“näher” frequency rank
46379
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Nager näher
Definition Säugetier (Ordnung Rodentia) mit langen, ständig nachwachsenden Schneidezähnen Komparativ von nah

Where the eye mixes Nager and näher

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Nager and näher follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Nager
5 ch
näher

Look-alike desk: Nager vs näher

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Nager is [ˈnaːɡɐ] while näher is [ˈnɛːɐ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs unknown), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46379, 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]. näher is at rank #1,564, tagged as anunknown, pronounced [ˈnɛːɐ].

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 46379, this pair ranks #1,321,074 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Nager vs näher

Shared letters: enr. Private to "Nager": ag. Private to "näher": hä.

"Nager" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "näher" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Nager ← naegr · nagerr · nagger · nagre · ngaer · nnager

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Nager" for "näher" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Nager" is a noun and "näher" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Nager" vs "näher" - which ranks higher?
"näher" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,564 in our German list, against #44,815 for "Nager". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Nager" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "näher" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,321,074 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Nager" and "näher" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nagen vs Nager". 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 #1,321,074 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