Which to use
“neue” is an adjective and “noyé” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #44,599
- “neue” frequency rank
- #15,949
- “noyé” frequency rank
- 60548
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | neue | noyé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Accusatif pluriel (à tous les genres) de la déclinaison forte de neu. | Personne qui se noie ou qui a péri par noyade. |
Where the eye mixes neue and noyé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. neue and noyé follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between neue and noyé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: neue is \ˈnɔɪ̯ə\ while noyé is \nwa.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60548, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
neue is recorded at frequency rank #44,599, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈnɔɪ̯ə\. noyé is at rank #15,949, tagged as anoun, pronounced \nwa.je\.
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 60548, this pair ranks #97,052 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of neue vs noyé
Shared letters: n. Private to "neue": eu. Private to "noyé": oyé.
"neue" · 4 letters · shape CVVV · "noyé" · 4 letters · shape CVVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- neue ← enue · neeu · nneue
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "neue" for "noyé" ever safe?
Which is more common, "neue" or "noyé"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "neue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "noyé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #97,052 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "neue" and "noyé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "neue 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 #97,052 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.