notéevsnoyésWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#25,060
“notée” frequency rank
#22,352
“noyés” frequency rank
47412
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature notée noyés
Definition Féminin singulier de noté. Masculin pluriel de noyé.

Where the eye mixes notée and noyés

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

5 ch
notée
5 ch
noyés

Why the eye confuses notée with noyés

A purely visual mix-up. notée (\nɔ.te\) and noyés (\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 47412, 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\. 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 47412, this pair ranks #187,162 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of notée vs noyés

Shared letters: noé. Private to "notée": et. Private to "noyés": sy.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "notée" for "noyés" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\nɔ.te\ versus \nwa.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "notée" or "noyés"?
"noyés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,352 in our French list, against #25,060 for "notée". 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 "noyés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #187,162 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "notée" and "noyés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "notée vs noués". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #187,162 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