nicevsnisTell them apart

Quick tell: nice is a adjective, nis is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“nice” is an adjective and “nis” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#423
“nice” frequency rank
#33,760
“nis” frequency rank
34183
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nice nis
Definition Pleasant, satisfactory. A nix; a hobgoblin, especially one that resides in a farm house.

Letter map: nice vs nis

Shared letters muted; letters that set nice and nis apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
nice
3 ch
nis

Part-of-speech tell for nice / nis

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nice is anadjective and nisanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34183, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nice is recorded at frequency rank #423, classified as anadj, pronounced /naɪs/. nis is at rank #33,760, tagged as anoun.

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 34183, this pair ranks #322,960 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nice vs nis

Shared letters: in. Private to "nice": ce. Private to "nis": s.

"nice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "nis" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nicencie · nicce · niec · nnice

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nice" and "nis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nice" is an adjective and "nis" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "nice" vs "nis" - which ranks higher?
"nice" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #423 in our English list, against #33,760 for "nis". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "nice" vs "nis" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #322,960 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nice" and "nis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nis 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 #322,960 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