noisevsnousTell them apart

Quick tell: noise is a noun, nous is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“noise” is a noun and “nous” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,196
“noise” frequency rank
#37,704
“nous” frequency rank
68900
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature noise nous
Definition Lärm, Geräusch, Geschrei, Gerücht, Ton, Tonspiel wir

Letter map: noise vs nous

Shared letters muted; letters that set noise and nous apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. noise runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against nous's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
noise
4 ch
nous

Grammar separator: noise vs nous

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: noise is anoun and nousapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68900, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

noise is recorded at frequency rank #31,196, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. nous is at rank #37,704, tagged as apron, pronounced [nu].

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 68900, this pair ranks #493,321 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of noise vs nous

Shared letters: nos. Private to "noise": ei. Private to "nous": u.

"noise" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "nous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • noise ← niose · nnoise · noies · noisse · nosie · onise
  • nous ← nnous · nosu · nouss · nuos · onus

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "noise" and "nous" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "noise" is a noun and "nous" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "noise" or "nous" show up more?
"noise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,196 in our German list, against #37,704 for "nous". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "noise" and "nous". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "noise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nous" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #493,321 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "noise" and "nous" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nous vs nox". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #493,321 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list