newvsnmWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: new is a adjective, nm is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“new” is an adjective and “nm” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#688
“new” frequency rank
#11,940
“nm” frequency rank
12628
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature new nm
Definition neu Einheitensymbol für Nanometer. 1 nm = 10⁻⁹ m.

Letter map: new vs nm

Shared letters muted; letters that set new and nm apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
new
2 ch
nm

Part-of-speech tell for new / nm

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: new is anadjective and nmanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12628, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

new is recorded at frequency rank #688, classified as anadj, pronounced [njuː]. nm is at rank #11,940, tagged as anabbrev.

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 12628, this pair ranks #1,963,029 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of new vs nm

Shared letters: n. Private to "new": ew. Private to "nm": m.

"new" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "nm" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "new" for "nm" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "new" is an adjective and "nm" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "new" vs "nm" - which ranks higher?
"new" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #688 in our German list, against #11,940 for "nm". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "new" vs "nm" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "new" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nm" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,963,029 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "new" and "nm" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nm vs nox". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,963,029 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