Ne vs nei, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“Ne” is an abbrev and “nei” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#322
“Ne” frequency rank: #38,309
“nei” frequency rank: 38631
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Ne	nei
Definition	Neon	verneinen, negieren, abstreiten

Letter map: Ne vs nei

Shared letters muted; letters that set Ne and nei apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

nei

Role in the sentence - Ne and nei

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Ne is anabbrev and neiaverb. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “Ne” sits inside “nei”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38631, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Ne is recorded at frequency rank #322, classified as anabbrev. nei is at rank #38,309, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 38631, this pair ranks #1,558,835 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Ne vs nei

Shared letters: en. Private to "Ne": -. Private to "nei": i.

"Ne" · 2 letters · shape CV · "nei" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Ne" for "nei" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Ne" is an abbrev and "nei" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "Ne" vs "nei" - which ranks higher?

"Ne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #322 in our German list, against #38,309 for "nei". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "Ne" and "nei". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "Ne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "nei" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,558,835 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Ne" and "nei" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nei vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,558,835 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.