nth
/ɛnθ/
"nth" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“nth” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #32,102) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #32,102
- frequency rank, English
- 1,534
- “N” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Occurring at position n in a sequence.
Corpus desk
Index EN-nth · nth · English
nth · rank #32,102 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #32,102
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-0 0 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,534
- PHOTO-FINISH O'Shea
Nearest frequency peer: O'Shea (+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 “nth”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- necrosis
necrosis
67,904 corpus weight
- Niro
Niro
67,902 corpus weight
- nth
nth
67,899 corpus weight
- O'Shea
O'Shea
67,898 corpus weight
- onerous
onerous
67,897 corpus weight
- onsite
onsite
67,896 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “nth” 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 | nth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ɛnθ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #32,102 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “nth”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for nth is neighbouring look-alikes ("NZ", "nu", …), not just typos; it is anadjective pronounced /ɛnθ/. Frequency #32,102 among 1,534 “N” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
No generated misspelling entries exist for nth in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "NZ", "nu", "NYC", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From n + -th (ordinal suffix). The correct English form is nth, spelled N-T-H.
Definition
- 1Occurring at position n in a sequence.
- 2Occurring at a relatively large but unspecified position in a series.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how nth appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Shea had just beaten me at chess, as usual, and, also as usual, I had gleaned what questionable satisfaction I might by twitting him with this indication of failing mentality by calling his attention to the nth time to that theory, propounded by certain scientists, which is based upon the assertion that phenomenal chess players are always found to be from…
Etymology
From n + -th (ordinal suffix).
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "nth", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).