nouvel an
\nu.vɛ.l‿ɑ̃\
The verdict
“nouvel an” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Premier jour de l’année célébré comme fête.
Corpus desk
Index FR-nouvel-an · nouvel an · French
nouvel an · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "N" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nouvel an |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \nu.vɛ.l‿ɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « nouvel an » en français
Rare enough to double-check
nouvel an is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \nu.vɛ.l‿ɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Premier jour de l’année célébré comme fête.".
nouvel an doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is nouvel an, spelled N-O-U-V-E-L- -A-N.
Definition
- 1Premier jour de l’année célébré comme fête.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how nouvel an appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Les fêtes du nouvel an.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.