NSA

\ɛn.ɛs.a\

/\ɛn.ɛs.a\/ name

The verdict

“NSA” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #13,019) as a proper noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#13,019
frequency rank, French
1,563
“N” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - « Agence de sécurité nationale » américaine.

Corpus desk

Index FR-nsa · NSA · French

NSA · rank #13,019 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #13,019
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,563
  • PHOTO-FINISH nova

Nearest frequency peer: nova (-1 rank slots)

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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « NSA »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « NSA » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

NSA vs nu
0% similar
NSA vs ny
0% similar
NSA vs Nt
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for NSA
PropertyValue
HeadwordNSA
LanguageFrench
Part of speechProper noun
IPA\ɛn.ɛs.a\
Letters3
Frequency rank#13,019
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « NSA »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).NSAse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « nova » (#13,018), « nécessitent » (#13,020), « nocturnes » (#13,017). Parmi 1,563 lemmes en « N », « NSA » est au #13,019. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for NSA is neighbouring look-alikes ("nu", "ny", …), not just typos; it is aproper noun pronounced \ɛn.ɛs.a\. Frequency #13,019 among 1,563 “N” headwords. Gloss: "« Agence de sécurité nationale » américaine.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for NSA, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "nu", "ny", "Nt", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is NSA, spelled N-S-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    « Agence de sécurité nationale » américaine.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how NSA appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. « Je n’essaie pas de faire tomber la NSA, j’essaie de l’améliorer », a-t-il [Edward Snowden] ajouté, avant d’ironiser : « Je travaille encore pour la NSA aujourd'hui. Elle est la seule à ne pas s’en rendre compte. »
  2. « Dans un monde où il n’y aurait pas de restrictions pour tuer un Américain, j’irais et je le [Edward Snowden] tuerais moi-même », a ajouté un analyste de la NSA.

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "NSA"?
"NSA" is spelled N-S-A. The IPA pronunciation is \ɛn.ɛs.a\.
What does "NSA" mean?
As a proper noun, "NSA" means: « Agence de sécurité nationale » américaine.
What words are commonly confused with "NSA"?
"NSA" is commonly confused with "nu", "ny", "Nt". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "NSA"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "NSA" is \ɛn.ɛs.a\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "NSA" come from?
"NSA" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "NSA", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list