nothing
/ˈnʌθ.ɪŋ/
"nothing" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“nothing” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #256 in English word frequency and used as a pronoun.
- #256
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Not any thing; no thing.
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 | nothing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Pronoun |
| IPA | /ˈnʌθ.ɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #256 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “nothing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for nothing is 7 letters long, classified as a pronoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈnʌθ.ɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #256 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for nothing, with forms such as "nnothing", "nohting", and "nothhing". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 4 confusable-pair relationships, "noting", "noticing", "netting", 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 nothyng, noon thing, non thing, na þing, nan thing, nan þing, from Old English nāþing, nān þing (“nothing”, literally “not any thing”), equivalent to no + thing. Compare Old English nāwiht (“nothing”, literally “no thing”), Swedish ingen… The correct English form is nothing, spelled N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Not any thing; no thing.
- 2An absence of anything, including empty space, brightness, darkness, matter, or a vacuum.
Etymology
From Middle English nothyng, noon thing, non thing, na þing, nan thing, nan þing, from Old English nāþing, nān þing (“nothing”, literally “not any thing”), equivalent to no + thing. Compare Old English nāwiht (“nothing”, literally “no thing”), Swedish ingenting (“nothing”, literally “not any thing, no thing”).
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: nnothing,nohting,nothhing,nothign,nothingg,nothinng,nothnig,notihng,notthing,ntohing,onthing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of nothing - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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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Using “nothing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is N-O-T-H-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈnʌθ.ɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “noting” - see the side-by-side comparison. nothing vs noting
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
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.