nicht
[nɪçt]
The verdict
“nicht” is in the everyday core of German, ranked #8 in German word frequency and used as a particle.
- #8
- frequency rank, German
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Partikel, die die Verneinung, die Negierung beziehungsweise die Negation ausdrückt
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nicht |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Particle |
| IPA | [nɪçt] |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “nicht” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for nicht is 5 letters long, classified as a particle, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [nɪçt]. Corpus data places it at rank #8 in overall German word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for nicht, with forms such as "incht", "nciht", and "niccht". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "nit", "noch", "nick", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct German form is nicht, spelled N-I-C-H-T.
Definition
- 1Partikel, die die Verneinung, die Negierung beziehungsweise die Negation ausdrückt
- 2Negation, Negator
- 3den Sinn nicht verändernde Partikel in Sätzen oder Satzteilen (Nebensätzen), die schon anders als durch das Wort „nicht“ funktional negiert sind
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: incht,nciht,niccht,nichht,nichtt,nicth,nihct,nnicht
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of nicht - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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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Using “nicht”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is N-I-C-H-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [nɪçt] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “nit” - see the side-by-side comparison. nicht vs nit
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.