non vs nr, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“non” is an adverb and “nr” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#515
“non” frequency rank: #16,545
“nr” frequency rank: 17060
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	non	nr
Definition	Obsolete form of none.	Abbreviation of near.

Letter map: non vs nr

Shared letters muted; letters that set non and nr apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

non

2 ch

Role in the sentence - non and nr

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: non is anadverb and nrapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17060, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

non is recorded at frequency rank #515, classified as anadv, pronounced /nɑn/. nr is at rank #16,545, tagged as aprep.

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 17060, this pair ranks #453,878 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of non vs nr

Shared letters: n. Private to "non": o. Private to "nr": r.

"non" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "nr" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "non" and "nr" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "non" is an adverb and "nr" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary English text, does "non" or "nr" show up more?

"non" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #515 in our English list, against #16,545 for "nr". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "non" and "nr". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "non" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "nr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #453,878 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"non" and "nr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "NPL vs nr". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #453,878 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.