noavsnusTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#41,927
“noa” frequency rank
#7,091
“nus” frequency rank
49018
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature noa nus
Definition Nom d’un cépage hybride américain franc de pied dont l’usage commercial est interdit en France depuis 1935. C'est un raisin blanc au goût foxé dont les petits grains se détachent de la rafle à maturité. Des particuliers en possèdent dans leur jardin. Masculin pluriel de nu.

Where the eye mixes noa and nus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
noa
3 ch
nus

Look-alike desk: noa vs nus

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: noa is \no.a\ while nus is \ny\. 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 49018, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

noa is recorded at frequency rank #41,927, classified as anoun, pronounced \no.a\. nus is at rank #7,091, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ny\.

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 49018, this pair ranks #174,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of noa vs nus

Shared letters: n. Private to "noa": ao. Private to "nus": su.

"noa" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "nus" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "noa" for "nus" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "noa" is a noun and "nus" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "noa" vs "nus" - which ranks higher?
"nus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,091 in our French list, against #41,927 for "noa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "noa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #174,144 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "noa" and "nus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noa vs nop". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #174,144 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