ne vs no, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ne” and “no” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#8,998
“ne” frequency rank: #9
“no” frequency rank: 9007
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ne	no
Definition	No.	Adverbio de negación, respondiendo a una pregunta.

Letter map: ne vs no

Shared letters muted; letters that set ne and no apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

Corpus notes: ne and no

ne and no are indexed as a confusable Spanish pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - e in “ne” becomes o in “no”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9007, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ne is recorded at frequency rank #8,998, classified as anadv. no is at rank #9, tagged as anadv, pronounced [ˈno].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 9007, this pair ranks #303,244 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ne vs no

Shared letters: n. Private to "ne": e. Private to "no": o.

"ne" · 2 letters · shape CV · "no" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ne" for "no" ever safe?

No. They differ by a single letter - e in “ne” becomes o in “no”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

Frequency check: "ne" vs "no" - which ranks higher?

"no" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9 in our Spanish list, against #8,998 for "ne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ne" and "no".

Full dictionary entry for "ne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "no" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #303,244 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ne" and "no" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ne vs nox". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #303,244 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.