nosvsnotesConfusable pair

Which to use

“nos” and “notes” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#14,600
“nos” frequency rank
#1,531
“notes” frequency rank
16131
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nos notes
Definition plural of no plural of note

Letter map: nos vs notes

Shared letters muted; letters that set nos and notes apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
nos
5 ch
notes

Corpus notes: nos and notes

nos and notes are indexed as a confusable English 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nos is recorded at frequency rank #14,600, classified as anoun. notes is at rank #1,531, tagged as anoun, pronounced /noʊts/.

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 16131, this pair ranks #459,688 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nos vs notes

Shared letters: nos. Private to "nos": -. Private to "notes": et.

"nos" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "notes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • notesnnotes · noets · notess · notse · nottes · ntoes · ontes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nos" and "notes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "nos" or "notes" show up more?
"notes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,531 in our English list, against #14,600 for "nos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "nos" and "notes".

  • Full dictionary entry for "nos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "notes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #459,688 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nos" and "notes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nos vs NPL". 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 #459,688 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list