nowvsNPWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#72
“now” frequency rank
#13,570
“NP” frequency rank
13642
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature now NP
Definition Present; current. Initialism of notary public.

Letter map: now vs NP

Shared letters muted; letters that set now and NP apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
now
2 ch
NP

Part-of-speech tell for now / NP

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: now is anadjective and NPanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13642, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

now is recorded at frequency rank #72, classified as anadj, pronounced /naʊ/. NP is at rank #13,570, 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 13642, this pair ranks #474,626 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of now vs NP

Shared letters: n. Private to "now": ow. Private to "NP": p.

"now" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "NP" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "now" and "NP" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "now" is an adjective and "NP" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "now" or "NP" show up more?
"now" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #72 in our English list, against #13,570 for "NP". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "now" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "NP" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #474,626 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "now" and "NP" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "NP vs NPL". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #474,626 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