neonvsneunTell them apart

Quick tell: neon is a noun, neun is a num, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“neon” is a noun and “neun” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,432
“neon” frequency rank
#1,639
“neun” frequency rank
29071
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature neon neun
Definition Neon die Kardinalzahl zwischen acht und zehn

Letter map: neon vs neun

Shared letters muted; letters that set neon and neun apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. neon and neun follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
neon
4 ch
neun

Part-of-speech tell for neon / neun

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: neon is anoun and neunanum. On the page they differ by a single letter - o in “neon” becomes u in “neun”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29071, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

neon is recorded at frequency rank #27,432, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. neun is at rank #1,639, tagged as anum, pronounced [nɔɪ̯n].

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 29071, this pair ranks #1,773,579 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of neon vs neun

Shared letters: en. Private to "neon": o. Private to "neun": u.

"neon" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "neun" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • neon ← enon · neno · neonn · nneon · noen
  • neun ← enun · nenu · neunn · nneun · nuen

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "neon" and "neun" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "neon" is a noun and "neun" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "neon" or "neun"?
"neun" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,639 in our German list, against #27,432 for "neon". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "neon" and "neun".

  • Full dictionary entry for "neon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "neun" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,773,579 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "neon" and "neun" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "neon 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 #1,773,579 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