nagesvsnakedWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: nages is a noun, naked is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“nages” is a noun and “naked” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,613
“nages” frequency rank
#31,622
“naked” frequency rank
67235
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nages naked
Definition Pluriel de nage. Nu, nue, qui est dévêtu.

Where the eye mixes nages and naked

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. nages and naked follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
nages
5 ch
naked

Why the eye confuses nages with naked

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nages is \naʒ\ while naked is \ˈneɪ.kɪd\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67235, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nages is recorded at frequency rank #35,613, classified as anoun, pronounced \naʒ\. naked is at rank #31,622, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ˈneɪ.kɪd\.

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 67235, this pair ranks #64,294 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of nages vs naked

Shared letters: aen. Private to "nages": gs. Private to "naked": dk.

"nages" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "naked" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nagesnaegs · nagess · nagges · nagse · ngaes · nnages
  • nakedanked · naekd · nakde · nakedd · nakked · nkaed · nnaked

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nages" and "naked" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nages" is a noun and "naked" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "nages" or "naked" show up more?
"naked" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,622 in our French list, against #35,613 for "nages". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nages" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "naked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,294 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nages" and "naked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nages vs noués". 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 #64,294 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list