Which to use
“nigh” is an adjective and “night” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #21,298
- “nigh” frequency rank
- #221
- “night” frequency rank
- 21519
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | nigh | night |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Near, close by. | The time when the Sun is below the horizon when the sky is dark. |
Where the eye mixes nigh and night
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. nigh runs 4 letters (CVCC) against night's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses nigh with night
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nigh is /naɪ/ while night is /naɪt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “nigh” sits inside “night”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21519, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
nigh is recorded at frequency rank #21,298, classified as anadj, pronounced /naɪ/. night is at rank #221, tagged as anoun, pronounced /naɪt/.
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 21519, this pair ranks #423,303 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of nigh vs night
Shared letters: ghin. Private to "nigh": -. Private to "night": t.
"nigh" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "night" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "nigh" and "night" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "nigh" or "night" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "nigh" and "night" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "nigh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "night" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #423,303 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "nigh" and "night" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "NEH vs nigh". 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 #423,303 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.