NIC
"nic" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“NIC” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #17,191) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #17,191
- frequency rank, English
- 1,534
- “N” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Acronym of network interface card or network interface controller, used to interface a computer to a network.
Corpus desk
Index EN-nic · NIC · English
NIC · rank #17,191 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #17,191
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,534
- PHOTO-FINISH newcomer
Nearest frequency peer: newcomer (-1 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 “NIC”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- motif
motif
82,813 corpus weight
- newcomer
newcomer
82,811 corpus weight
- NIC
NIC
82,810 corpus weight
- nobles
nobles
82,809 corpus weight
- oats
oats
82,808 corpus weight
- ominous
ominous
82,807 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “NIC” 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 | NIC |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #17,191 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “NIC”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for NIC is neighbouring look-alikes ("NJ", "nm", …), not just typos; it is anoun. Frequency #17,191 among 1,534 “N” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
No misspelling variants are generated for NIC in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "NJ", "nm", "NZ", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is NIC, spelled N-I-C.
Definition
- 1Acronym of network interface card or network interface controller, used to interface a computer to a network.
- 2Acronym of network information center.
- 3Acronym of national insurance contribution.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how NIC appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Despite propelling the tax burden to its highest peacetime level – through a combination of next April’s national insurance contributions (NICs) increase and a sharp rise in corporation tax due to take effect in 2023 – the chancellor painted himself as the champion of low taxes.
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 "NIC", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).