neuvsNSAWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#385
“neu” frequency rank
#4,454
“NSA” frequency rank
4839
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature neu NSA
Definition vor kurzer Zeit gemacht oder geschehen National Security Agency, militärischer Nachrichtendienst der USA

Letter map: neu vs NSA

Shared letters muted; letters that set neu and NSA apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
neu
3 ch
NSA

Part-of-speech tell for neu / NSA

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: neu is anadjective and NSAanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4839, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

neu is recorded at frequency rank #385, classified as anadj, pronounced [nɔɪ̯]. NSA is at rank #4,454, tagged as anoun, 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 4839, this pair ranks #1,996,512 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of neu vs NSA

Shared letters: n. Private to "neu": eu. Private to "NSA": as.

"neu" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "NSA" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "neu" and "NSA" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "neu" is an adjective and "NSA" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "neu" or "NSA" show up more?
"neu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #385 in our German list, against #4,454 for "NSA". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "neu" and "NSA".

  • Full dictionary entry for "neu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "NSA" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,996,512 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "neu" and "NSA" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "NSA vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,996,512 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