nonnesvsnôtresTell them apart

Which to use

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

#39,420
“nonnes” frequency rank
#9,709
“nôtres” frequency rank
49129
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nonnes nôtres
Definition Pluriel de nonne. Folies, bons tours, bons divertissements.

Where the eye mixes nonnes and nôtres

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. nonnes and nôtres follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
nonnes
6 ch
nôtres

Why the eye confuses nonnes with nôtres

A purely visual mix-up. nonnes (\nɔn\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49129, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nonnes is recorded at frequency rank #39,420, classified as anoun, pronounced \nɔn\. 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 49129, this pair ranks #173,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of nonnes vs nôtres

Shared letters: ens. Private to "nonnes": o. Private to "nôtres": rtô.

"nonnes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "nôtres" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nonnesnnones · nnonnes · nonens · nones · nonness · nonnse · onnnes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nonnes" and "nôtres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\nɔn\ versus \notʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "nonnes" or "nôtres"?
"nôtres" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,709 in our French list, against #39,420 for "nonnes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "nonnes" 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 #173,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nonnes" and "nôtres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nonnes 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 #173,246 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