nearvsnettTell them apart

Which to use

“near” and “nett” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#33,730
“near” frequency rank
#1,706
“nett” frequency rank
35436
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature near nett
Definition nahe lieb, liebenswürdig, angenehm

Letter map: near vs nett

Shared letters muted; letters that set near and nett apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
near
4 ch
nett

Corpus notes: near and nett

near and nett are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35436, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

near is recorded at frequency rank #33,730, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. nett is at rank #1,706, tagged as anadj, pronounced [nɛt].

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 35436, this pair ranks #1,640,055 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of near vs nett

Shared letters: en. Private to "near": ar. Private to "nett": t.

"near" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "nett" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nearenar · naer · nearr · nera · nnear
  • nettentt · nnett · ntet

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "near" for "nett" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "near" or "nett"?
"nett" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,706 in our German list, against #33,730 for "near". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "near" and "nett". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "near" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nett" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,640,055 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "near" and "nett" 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 #1,640,055 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