nicktvsnightTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#24,055
“nickt” frequency rank
#4,821
“night” frequency rank
28876
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nickt night
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs nicken Nacht

Where the eye mixes nickt and night

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. nickt and night follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
nickt
5 ch
night

Visual trap between nickt and night

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nickt is [nɪkt] while night is [naɪt]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28876, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nickt is recorded at frequency rank #24,055, classified as averb, pronounced [nɪkt]. night is at rank #4,821, tagged as anoun, pronounced [naɪt].

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 28876, this pair ranks #1,776,991 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nickt vs night

Shared letters: int. Private to "nickt": ck. Private to "night": gh.

"nickt" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "night" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nickt ← inckt · ncikt · nicckt · nickkt · nicktt · nictk · nikct · nnickt
  • night ← inght · ngiht · nigght · nighht · nightt · nigth · nihgt · nnight

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nickt" and "night" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nickt" is a verb and "night" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "nickt" or "night" show up more?
"night" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,821 in our German list, against #24,055 for "nickt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nickt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "night" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,776,991 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nickt" and "night" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "neck vs nickt". 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 #1,776,991 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