nosvsnowWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: nos is a noun, now is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#14,600
“nos” frequency rank
#72
“now” frequency rank
14672
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nos now
Definition plural of no Present; current.

Letter map: nos vs now

Shared letters muted; letters that set nos and now apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
nos
3 ch
now

Grammar separator: nos vs now

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: nos is anoun and nowanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - s in “nos” becomes w in “now”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14672, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nos is recorded at frequency rank #14,600, classified as anoun. now is at rank #72, tagged as anadj, pronounced /naʊ/.

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 14672, this pair ranks #468,644 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nos vs now

Shared letters: no. Private to "nos": s. Private to "now": w.

"nos" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "now" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nos" and "now" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nos" is a noun and "now" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "nos" vs "now" - which ranks higher?
"now" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #72 in our English list, against #14,600 for "nos". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "nos" vs "now" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "now" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #468,644 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nos" and "now" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nos vs NPL". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #468,644 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