Which to use
“night” and “nit” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #221
- “night” frequency rank
- #25,859
- “nit” frequency rank
- 26080
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | night | nit |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The time when the Sun is below the horizon when the sky is dark. | The egg of a louse. |
Where the eye mixes night and nit
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. night runs 5 letters (CVCCC) against nit's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between night and nit
A purely visual mix-up. night (/naɪt/) and nit (/nɪt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26080, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
night is recorded at frequency rank #221, classified as anoun, pronounced /naɪt/. nit is at rank #25,859, tagged as anoun, pronounced /nɪt/.
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 26080, this pair ranks #389,354 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of night vs nit
Shared letters: int. Private to "night": gh. Private to "nit": -.
"night" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC · "nit" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- night ← inght · ngiht · nigght · nighht · nightt · nigth · nihgt · nnight
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "night" and "nit" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "night" or "nit"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "night" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "nit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #389,354 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "night" and "nit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nit 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 #389,354 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.