nos vs ny, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“nos” is a pronoun and “ny” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,872
“nos” frequency rank: #20,687
“ny” frequency rank: 48559
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	nos	ny
Definition	für die 1. Person, Plural, Nominativ (Subjektfall); wir	neu

Letter map: nos vs ny

Shared letters muted; letters that set nos and ny apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

nos

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for nos / ny

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nos is apronoun and nyanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48559, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nos is recorded at frequency rank #27,872, classified as apron, pronounced […]. ny is at rank #20,687, tagged as anadj, pronounced [nyː].

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 48559, this pair ranks #1,244,031 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nos vs ny

Shared letters: n. Private to "nos": os. Private to "ny": y.

"nos" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "ny" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nos" and "ny" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nos" is a pronoun and "ny" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "nos" or "ny"?

"ny" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,687 in our German list, against #27,872 for "nos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "nos" vs "ny" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "nos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ny" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,244,031 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"nos" and "ny" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nos vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,244,031 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.