NCO
"nco" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“NCO” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #44,957) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #44,957
- frequency rank, English
- 1,534
- “N” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Initialism of numerically controlled oscillator.
Corpus desk
Index EN-nco · NCO · English
NCO · rank #44,957 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #44,957
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,534
- PHOTO-FINISH Nehemiah
Nearest frequency peer: Nehemiah (+2 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “NCO”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- naka
naka
55,049 corpus weight
- nape
nape
55,048 corpus weight
- natively
natively
55,047 corpus weight
- NCO
NCO
55,044 corpus weight
- Nehemiah
Nehemiah
55,042 corpus weight
- Nikkei
Nikkei
55,038 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “NCO” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | NCO |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #44,957 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “NCO”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for NCO is neighbouring look-alikes ("ne", "NJ", …), not just typos; it is anoun. Frequency #44,957 among 1,534 “N” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for NCO, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ne", "NJ", "ni", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is NCO, spelled N-C-O.
Definition
- 1Initialism of numerically controlled oscillator.
- 2Initialism of non-commissioned officer.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how NCO appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
There was for some reason a shortage not only of regular private soldiers but of officers and NCOs.
For Sgt Kudrya, an NCO who has found himself commanding a company because of a lack of officers, this low-level war means a constant struggle with the elements, paper work (he is under constant pressure from above to account for each litre of petrol and round of ammunition), and the erosion of discipline born of boredom.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "NCO", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).