neigtvsneilWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: neigt is a verb, neil is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“neigt” is a verb and “neil” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,548
“neigt” frequency rank
#14,135
“neil” frequency rank
26683
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature neigt neil
Definition 2. Person Plural Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs neigen Adessiv Plural des Personalpronomens nemad „sie“

Letter map: neigt vs neil

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

5 ch
neigt
4 ch
neil

Part-of-speech tell for neigt / neil

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: neigt is averb and neilanunknown. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26683, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

neigt is recorded at frequency rank #12,548, classified as averb, pronounced [naɪ̯kt]. neil is at rank #14,135, tagged as anunknown, 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 26683, this pair ranks #1,814,120 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of neigt vs neil

Shared letters: ein. Private to "neigt": gt. Private to "neil": l.

"neigt" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "neil" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • neigt ← enigt · negit · neiggt · neigtt · neitg · niegt · nneigt
  • neil ← enil · neill · neli · niel · nneil

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "neigt" and "neil" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "neigt" is a verb and "neil" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "neigt" or "neil" show up more?
"neigt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,548 in our German list, against #14,135 for "neil". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "neigt" and "neil". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "neigt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "neil" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,814,120 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "neigt" and "neil" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "neil 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 #1,814,120 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