now
/naʊ/
"now" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“now” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #72 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #72
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Present; current.
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 | now |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /naʊ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #72 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “now” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for now is 3 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /naʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #72 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 edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for now, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "NZ", "NT", "NP", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English now, nou, nu, from Old English nū, from Proto-West Germanic *nū, from Proto-Germanic *nu, from Proto-Indo-European *nū (“now”). Doublet of nu ("well?"). Cognates Cognate with Scots noo, nou, now (“now”), Yola neow, now, nowe (“now”), Nor… The correct English form is now, spelled N-O-W.
Definition
- 1Present; current.
- 2Fashionable; popular; up to date; current.
Etymology
From Middle English now, nou, nu, from Old English nū, from Proto-West Germanic *nū, from Proto-Germanic *nu, from Proto-Indo-European *nū (“now”). Doublet of nu ("well?"). Cognates Cognate with Scots noo, nou, now (“now”), Yola neow, now, nowe (“now”), North Frisian nü (“now”), Saterland Frisian nu (“now”), West Frisian no (“now”), Dutch nu, nou (“now”), German nu, nun (“now”), Limburgish noe, Nuu (“now”), Danish, Swedish nu (“now”), Elfdalian nų (“now”), Faroese nú, núgv (“now”), Icelandic nú, núna (“now”), Norwegian Bokmål nu, nå (“now”), Norwegian Nynorsk no, nu, nå (“now”), Gothic 𐌽𐌿 (nu, “now”), Latin num (“even now, whether”), Latin nunc (“now”), Albanian ni (“now”), Lithuanian nù (“now”), Avestan 𐬥𐬏 (nū, “now”), Sanskrit नु (nu, “now”).
This word in other languages
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 “now”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is N-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /naʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “NZ” - see the side-by-side comparison. now vs NZ
- 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.