napevsNMEWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: nape is a noun, NME is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“nape” is a noun and “NME” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,953
“nape” frequency rank
#43,279
“NME” frequency rank
88232
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nape NME
Definition The back part of the neck. Initialism of New Musical Express.

Letter map: nape vs NME

Shared letters muted; letters that set nape and NME apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. nape runs 4 letters (CVCV) against NME's 3 (CCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
nape
3 ch
NME

Part-of-speech tell for nape / NME

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nape is anoun and NMEaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88232, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nape is recorded at frequency rank #44,953, classified as anoun, pronounced /neɪp/. NME is at rank #43,279, tagged as aname.

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 88232, this pair ranks #6,642 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of nape vs NME

Shared letters: en. Private to "nape": ap. Private to "NME": m.

"nape" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "NME" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nape ← anpe · naep · nappe · nnape · npae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nape" and "NME" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nape" is a noun and "NME" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "nape" vs "NME" - which ranks higher?
"NME" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,279 in our English list, against #44,953 for "nape". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "nape" and "NME". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nape" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "NME" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #6,642 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nape" and "NME" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nape vs NPL". 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 #6,642 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list