now
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
3 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "now", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "now" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "now" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
now is anEnglishadj. It means: Present; current. Pronounced /naʊ/. It ranks #72 in English word frequency. Often confused with NZ and NT.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | now |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /naʊ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #72 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for now is 3 letters long, classified as anadj, 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.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for now in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "NZ", "NT", "NP", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is now, spelled N-O-W, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
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
Frequency rank: #72 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter N in our English index: