night
/naɪt/
"night" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“night” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #221. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #221
- frequency rank, English
- 1,534
- “N” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The time when the Sun is below the horizon when the sky is dark.
Corpus desk
Index EN-night · night · English
night · rank #221 · 8 variants · 15 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #221
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-MID 15 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,534
- PHOTO-FINISH name
Nearest frequency peer: name (-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 neighbourhood for “night”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- days
days
99,783 corpus weight
- lot
lot
99,782 corpus weight
- name
name
99,781 corpus weight
- night
night
99,780 corpus weight
- play
play
99,779 corpus weight
- until
until
99,778 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “night” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | night |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /naɪt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #221 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “night” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around night (IPA /naɪt/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #221 among 1,534 “N” headwords. Wiktionary lists 9 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for night, with forms such as "inght", "ngiht", and "nigght". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 15 confusable-pair relationships, "NIH", "nit", "NIST", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English nighte, night, nyght, niȝt, naht, from Old English niht, from Proto-West Germanic *naht (“night”), from Proto-Germanic *nahts (“night”), from Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts (“night”). Cognates Cognate with Scots nicht (“night”), Yola neeght… The correct English form is night, spelled N-I-G-H-T.
Definition
- 1The time when the Sun is below the horizon when the sky is dark.
- 2The period of darkness beginning at the end of evening astronomical twilight when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon, and ending at the beginning of morning astronomical twilight.
- 3A period of time often defined in the legal system as beginning 30 minutes after sunset, and ending 30 minutes before sunrise.
- 4An evening or night spent at a particular activity.
- 5A day, or at least a night.
- 6Nightfall.
- 7Darkness (due to it being nighttime).
- 8A dark blue colour, midnight blue.
- 9A night's worth of competitions, generally one game.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how night appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Most animals are awake at day and sleep at night.
The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.
Etymology
From Middle English nighte, night, nyght, niȝt, naht, from Old English niht, from Proto-West Germanic *naht (“night”), from Proto-Germanic *nahts (“night”), from Proto-Indo-European *nókʷts (“night”). Cognates Cognate with Scots nicht (“night”), Yola neeght, nieght, nyeght (“night”), North Frisian naacht, Nacht, noach, nåcht (“night”), Saterland Frisian Noacht (“night”), West Frisian nacht (“night”), Cimbrian, Dutch nacht (“night”), German, Low German Nacht (“night”), Luxembourgish Nuecht (“night”), Mòcheno nòcht (“night”), Vilamovian naocht (“night”), Yiddish נאַכט (nakht, “night”), Danish nat (“night”), Faroese nátt (“night”), Icelandic nátt, nótt (“night”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish natt (“night”), Scanian nøtt (“night”), Gothic 𐌽𐌰𐌷𐍄𐍃 (nahts, “night”); also Breton noz (“night”), Cornish and Welsh nos (“night”), Irish anocht (“tonight”), Manx noght (“tonight”), Scottish Gaelic a-nochd, an nochd (“tonight”), Latin nox (“night”) (whence English nox, a doublet), Greek νύχτα (nýchta, “night”), Albanian natë (“night”), Latgalian and Latvian nakts (“night”), Lithuanian naktis (“night”), Belarusian ноч (noč, “night”), Bulgarian нощ (nošt, “night”), Czech, Polish, and Slovak noc (“night”), Macedonian ноќ (noḱ, “night”), Russian ночь (nočʹ, “night”), Serbo-Croatian ноћ, noć (“night”), Slovene noč (“night”), Ukrainian ніч (nič, “night”), Tocharian A nakcu (“last night; at night”), Tocharian B nekcīye (“last night; at night”), Hittite 𒉈𒆪𒊻 (nekuz, “evening, nightfall; dawn, twilight”), Sanskrit नक्त् (nákt).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- inght
- ngiht
- nigght
- nighht
- nightt
- nigth
- nihgt
- nnight
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of night - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "night"?
What does "night" mean?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "night", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "night". Here's where to go from here.
- "night" maps to 15 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "NIH". View pair
- 8 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #221 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "N" letter cohort. N–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.