nicevsnuéeTell them apart

Quick tell: nice is a adjective, nuée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#1,962
“nice” frequency rank
#32,934
“nuée” frequency rank
34896
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nice nuée
Definition Qui est simple, candide, innocent. Nuage étendu, épais, sombre.

Where the eye mixes nice and nuée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
nice
4 ch
nuée

Look-alike desk: nice vs nuée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nice is \nis\ while nuée is \nɥe\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34896, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nice is recorded at frequency rank #1,962, classified as anadj, pronounced \nis\. nuée is at rank #32,934, tagged as anoun, pronounced \nɥe\.

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 34896, this pair ranks #280,621 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nice vs nuée

Shared letters: en. Private to "nice": ci. Private to "nuée": .

"nice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "nuée" · 4 letters · shape CVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • niceince · ncie · nicce · niec · nnice

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nice" and "nuée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nice" is an adjective and "nuée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "nice" or "nuée"?
"nice" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,962 in our French list, against #32,934 for "nuée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "nice" and "nuée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nuée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #280,621 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nice" and "nuée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noués vs nuée". 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 #280,621 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