nosvsnoyésConfusable pair

Quick tell: nos is a determiner, noyés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“nos” is a determiner and “noyés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#147
“nos” frequency rank
#22,352
“noyés” frequency rank
22499
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nos noyés
Definition Première personne du pluriel. Qui sont à nous. Plusieurs possesseurs et plusieurs objets. Masculin pluriel de noyé.

Where the eye mixes nos and noyés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. nos runs 3 letters (CVC) against noyés's 5 (CVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
nos
5 ch
noyés

Visual trap between nos and noyés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nos is \no\ while noyés is \nwa.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22499, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nos is recorded at frequency rank #147, classified as adet, pronounced \no\. noyés is at rank #22,352, tagged as anadj, 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 22499, this pair ranks #357,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nos vs noyés

Shared letters: nos. Private to "nos": -. Private to "noyés": yé.

"nos" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "noyés" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nos" and "noyés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nos" is a determiner and "noyés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "nos" or "noyés" show up more?
"nos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #147 in our French list, against #22,352 for "noyés". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "nos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "noyés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #357,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nos" and "noyés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noués vs noyés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #357,658 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