How to pronounce niche

Short answer: both niche pronunciations are correct: NITCH (/nɪtʃ/), which rhymes with pitch, and NEESH (/niːʃ/), which rhymes with quiche. Merriam-Webster, American Heritage and Dictionary.com list NITCH first, and Cambridge gives only NITCH for American English. For British English, Cambridge gives only NEESH, and the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary lists it first. NEESH is also how the word sounds in French, the language it comes from.

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Is it NITCH or NEESH?

Both, but American and British dictionaries put them in a different order:

Merriam-Webster says NITCH is still more common in the US, though NEESH is gaining ground, and American Heritage notes that some Americans consider NEESH an affectation. In British English, Merriam-Webster finds NEESH the more common form, and a survey agrees: in 1998 the phonetician John Wells polled more than 1,900 British speakers for the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, and 95% preferred NEESH, only 5% NITCH. They volunteered, so it wasn't a random sample.

The one form to avoid is a mix of the two, NEECH (/niːtʃ/), with the vowel of NEESH and the ending of NITCH. In a 2005 survey by American Heritage, 69% of its Usage Panel of writers and scholars found it unacceptable.

So which should you say? Follow the people around you: NITCH is the safer choice in the US, NEESH in Britain. Just don't mix them into NEECH.

Why is niche pronounced two ways?

Niche is a French word, from nicher, "to nest", and Latin nidus, "nest". English borrowed it in the early 1600s, and Merriam-Webster dates its first known use to 1610. American Heritage also mentions a possible Italian source, nicchia, probably from a word for "seashell".

The spelling can be read two ways:

• The English way. Read as English, ch is the sound at the end of pitch, and the i is the short vowel of sit. American Heritage says English speakers turned niche into NITCH soon after borrowing it, and Merriam-Webster says that until the 20th century it was the only pronunciation in English dictionaries.
• The French way. In French, ch is normally SH, as in chef, and i is EE, as in chic. American Heritage says people who knew French revived this pronunciation in the 1900s. Daniel Jones's English Pronouncing Dictionary listed NEESH in 1917 as the less frequent form, and Merriam-Webster added it in 1961.

So NITCH isn't an American mistake: it's the older English pronunciation, and NEESH is the newer, French-style one.

How to say niche step by step

1. Pick one version. Either way, niche has one syllable, and the final e is silent.
2. For NITCH, say the short vowel of sit, then the CH of pitch: your tongue stops the air for a moment, then lets it go with a hiss. It rhymes with itch.
3. For NEESH, say the long vowel of see, then the SH of she: one steady hiss, with no stop before it. It rhymes with quiche.
4. Don't mix the halves. EE goes with SH, and the short vowel goes with CH. EE plus CH gives NEECH.

Spanish and Portuguese nicho, German Nische and Russian ниша all have two syllables, but English niche has one. Spanish has no short i, and nicho pairs EE with CH, so NITCH can come out as NEECH. French speakers can relax: their niche is already NEESH.

Practice in a sentence

• She found her niche writing about old video games.
• The hallway has a small niche in the wall for a vase.
• Is it NITCH or NEESH? Both: NITCH rhymes with pitch, NEESH with quiche.

Then practice the two sounds of ch; all these words except pitch came from French. American pronunciations, from the Cambridge Dictionary:

Other everyday words have two pronunciations in Cambridge too: see how to pronounce either, data and route, or another French word, croissant. Our list of 45 commonly mispronounced words also mentions niche.

What does niche mean?

A niche was first a hollow in a wall for a statue, its curved top traditionally decorated with a scallop shell, which may explain the Italian theory. Later it came to mean a job or place that suits someone, as in "find your niche". Ecologists use it for the role a species plays in its environment. A niche market is a small, specialized market, and niche is also an adjective: "a niche hobby". In French, une niche is also a doghouse.

Sources

• Merriam-Webster — niche, pronunciations, their history, first known use
• Cambridge Dictionary — niche; Dictionary.com — niche; Collins — niche
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries — niche and niche (American English)
• American Heritage Dictionary — niche, usage note and the 2005 Usage Panel survey
• Wiktionary — niche (English and French), nicho, Nische, ниша
• Daniel Jones — An English Pronouncing Dictionary, 1917 (1919 reprint)
• John Wells — LPD pronunciation preference poll 1998 and findings (archived copies)
• Wikipedia — Niche (architecture), Affricate, French orthography, Spanish phonology