nearvsNegerTell them apart

Quick tell: near is a adjective, Neger is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“near” is an adjective and “Neger” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,730
“near” frequency rank
#12,351
“Neger” frequency rank
46081
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature near Neger
Definition nahe ein dunkelhäutiger Mensch subsaharischer Abstammung

Letter map: near vs Neger

Shared letters muted; letters that set near and Neger apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. near runs 4 letters (CVVC) against Neger's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
near
5 ch
Neger

Role in the sentence - near and Neger

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: near is anadjective and Negeranoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46081, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

near is recorded at frequency rank #33,730, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. Neger is at rank #12,351, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈneːɡɐ].

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 46081, this pair ranks #1,331,262 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of near vs Neger

Shared letters: enr. Private to "near": a. Private to "Neger": g.

"near" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Neger" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • near ← enar · naer · nearr · nera · nnear
  • Neger ← neegr · negerr · negger · negre · ngeer · nneger

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "near" for "Neger" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "near" is an adjective and "Neger" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "near" or "Neger" show up more?
"Neger" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,351 in our German list, against #33,730 for "near". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "near" vs "Neger" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "near" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Neger" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,331,262 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "near" and "Neger" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "near vs puzzles". 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 #1,331,262 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