naturesvsnôtresWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“natures” and “nôtres” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#19,609
“natures” frequency rank
#9,709
“nôtres” frequency rank
29318
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature natures nôtres
Definition Pluriel de nature. Folies, bons tours, bons divertissements.

Where the eye mixes natures and nôtres

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. natures runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against nôtres's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
natures
6 ch
nôtres

Why the eye confuses natures with nôtres

A purely visual mix-up. natures (\na.tyʁ\) and nôtres (\notʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29318, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

natures is recorded at frequency rank #19,609, classified as anoun, pronounced \na.tyʁ\. nôtres is at rank #9,709, tagged as anoun, pronounced \notʁ\.

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 29318, this pair ranks #317,420 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of natures vs nôtres

Shared letters: enrst. Private to "natures": au. Private to "nôtres": ô.

"natures" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "nôtres" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • naturesantures · natrues · nattures · natuers · naturess · naturres · naturse · nautres

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "natures" and "nôtres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\na.tyʁ\ versus \notʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "natures" or "nôtres" show up more?
"nôtres" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,709 in our French list, against #19,609 for "natures". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "natures" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nôtres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #317,420 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "natures" and "nôtres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nôtres 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 #317,420 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