notéevsnouésTell them apart

Which to use

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

#25,060
“notée” frequency rank
#49,824
“noués” frequency rank
74884
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature notée noués
Definition Féminin singulier de noté. Masculin pluriel de noué.

Where the eye mixes notée and noués

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

5 ch
notée
5 ch
noués

Visual trap between notée and noués

A purely visual mix-up. notée (\nɔ.te\) and noués (\nwe\) 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 74884, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

notée is recorded at frequency rank #25,060, classified as anadj, pronounced \nɔ.te\. noués is at rank #49,824, tagged as anadj, pronounced \nwe\.

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 74884, this pair ranks #35,730 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of notée vs noués

Shared letters: noé. Private to "notée": et. Private to "noués": su.

"notée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "noués" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "notée" and "noués" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\nɔ.te\ versus \nwe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "notée" or "noués" show up more?
"notée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,060 in our French list, against #49,824 for "noués". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "notée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "noués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #35,730 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "notée" and "noués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nodules vs noués". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #35,730 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