notesvsnouésConfusable pair

Quick tell: notes is a noun, noués is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“notes” is a noun and “noués” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,747
“notes” frequency rank
#49,824
“noués” frequency rank
51571
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature notes noués
Definition Pluriel de note. Masculin pluriel de noué.

Where the eye mixes notes and noués

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
notes
5 ch
noués

Why the eye confuses notes with noués

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: notes is \nɔt\ while noués is \nwe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51571, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

notes is recorded at frequency rank #1,747, classified as anoun, pronounced \nɔt\. 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 51571, this pair ranks #154,028 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of notes vs noués

Shared letters: nos. Private to "notes": et. Private to "noués": .

"notes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "noués" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • notesnnotes · noets · notess · notse · nottes · ntoes · ontes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "notes" and "noués" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "notes" is a noun and "noués" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "notes" vs "noués" - which ranks higher?
"notes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,747 in our French list, against #49,824 for "noués". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "notes" 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 #154,028 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "notes" and "noués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nodules 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 #154,028 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