nonnevsnoyéeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#31,628
“nonne” frequency rank
#28,666
“noyée” frequency rank
60294
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nonne noyée
Definition Religieuse. Femme ou fille noyée.

Where the eye mixes nonne and noyée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. nonne (CVCCV) and noyée (CVVVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
nonne
5 ch
noyée

Look-alike desk: nonne vs noyée

A purely visual mix-up. nonne (\nɔn\) and noyée (\nwa.je\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60294, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nonne is recorded at frequency rank #31,628, classified as anoun, pronounced \nɔn\. noyée is at rank #28,666, 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 60294, this pair ranks #98,391 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of nonne vs noyée

Shared letters: eno. Private to "nonne": -. Private to "noyée": yé.

"nonne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "noyée" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nonne ← nnone · nnonne · nonen · onnne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nonne" and "noyée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\nɔn\ versus \nwa.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "nonne" vs "noyée" - which ranks higher?
"noyée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,666 in our French list, against #31,628 for "nonne". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "nonne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "noyée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #98,391 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nonne" and "noyée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nome vs nonne". 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 #98,391 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