Near-er

One of the great things about studying another language is what you learn about your own. To wit (that is to say, "to know," since this is the only surviving use of "wit" as a verb in English, though wissen remains the ordinary German verb for knowing):

German	English cognate
nach	nigh
naher	nigh+er > near
nächst	nigh+est > next

So "near" has lost its comparative sense entirely, though "next" retains that sense.