notre vs nour, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“notre” is a determiner and “nour” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#114
“notre” frequency rank: #31,151
“nour” frequency rank: 31265
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	notre	nour
Definition	Première personne du pluriel au singulier. Qui nous appartient. Plusieurs possesseurs (dont l’un est le locuteur) et un seul objet.	Cinquième mois du calendrier bahaï, correspondant environ à la période du 5 au 23 juin du calendrier grégorien.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set notre and nour apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch

notre

4 ch

nour

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: notre is \nɔtʁ\ while nour is \nuʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31265, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

notre is recorded at frequency rank #114, classified as adet, pronounced \nɔtʁ\. nour is at rank #31,151, tagged as anoun, pronounced \nuʁ\.

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 31265, this pair ranks #304,883 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of notre vs nour

Shared letters: nor. Private to "notre": et. Private to "nour": u.

"notre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "nour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

notre ← nnotre · norte · notrre · nottre · ntore · ontre
nour ← nnour · noru · nourr · nuor · onur

Frequency comparison

notre#114

nour#31,151

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "notre" and "nour" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "notre" is a determiner and "nour" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "notre" or "nour"?

"notre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #114 in our French list, against #31,151 for "nour". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering notre vs nour

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a determiner, it's “notre”; for a noun, it's “nour”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “notre” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable