nail
[neɪl]
The verdict
“nail” is uncommon German (frequency #68,510 among 1,954 “N” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #68,510
- frequency rank, German
- 1,954
- “N” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nagel, Stift
Corpus desk
Index DE-nail · nail · German
nail · rank #68,510 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #68,510
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,954
- PHOTO-FINISH nahesteht
Nearest frequency peer: nahesteht (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Langschwanz-Ränge nahe „nail“
Dünnes Band: Balken invertieren den Rang, seltenere Formen wirken kürzer
- nachtaktiv
nachtaktiv
31,494 corpus weight
- Nagelstudio
Nagelstudio
31,493 corpus weight
- nahesteht
nahesteht
31,492 corpus weight
- nail
nail
31,491 corpus weight
- namentliche
namentliche
31,489 corpus weight
- Namur
Namur
31,488 corpus weight
What this shows Langschwanz-Sicht: wo „nail“ gegen ähnlich seltene deutsche Ränge sitzt.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nail |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [neɪl] |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #68,510 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Langschwanz-Rang von „nail“ im Deutschen
Rare enough to double-check
nail is uncommon German at frequency #68,510 among 1,954 “N” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed [neɪl]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
nail doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct German form is nail, spelled N-A-I-L.
Definition
- 1Nagel, Stift
- 2Fingernagel, Zehennagel, Nagel
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how nail appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
We need more nails.
My little brother has this nasty habit of biting his nails.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar German words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "nail", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked German headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).