neivsnikiWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#38,309
“nei” frequency rank
#19,325
“niki” frequency rank
57634
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nei niki
Definition verneinen, negieren, abstreiten fliegendes Säugetier; Fledermaus

Letter map: nei vs niki

Shared letters muted; letters that set nei and niki apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. nei runs 3 letters (CVV) against niki's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
nei
4 ch
niki

Part-of-speech tell for nei / niki

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nei is averb and nikianoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nei is recorded at frequency rank #38,309, classified as averb, pronounced […]. niki is at rank #19,325, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈniki].

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 57634, this pair ranks #893,816 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nei vs niki

Shared letters: in. Private to "nei": e. Private to "niki": k.

"nei" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "niki" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • niki ← inki · niik · nikki · nkii · nniki

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nei" and "niki" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nei" is a verb and "niki" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "nei" vs "niki" - which ranks higher?
"niki" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,325 in our German list, against #38,309 for "nei". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "nei" and "niki".

  • Full dictionary entry for "nei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "niki" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #893,816 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nei" and "niki" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nei 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 #893,816 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