nouevsnoyéeTell them apart

Which to use

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

#26,457
“noue” frequency rank
#28,666
“noyée” frequency rank
55123
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature noue noyée
Definition Endroit où se rencontrent les surfaces inclinées de deux combles. Femme ou fille noyée.

Where the eye mixes noue and noyée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. noue runs 4 letters (CVVV) against noyée's 5 (CVVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
noue
5 ch
noyée

Visual trap between noue and noyée

A purely visual mix-up. noue (\nu\) and noyée (\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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55123, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

noue is recorded at frequency rank #26,457, classified as anoun, pronounced \nu\. noyée is at rank #28,666, tagged as anoun, 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 55123, this pair ranks #129,522 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of noue vs noyée

Shared letters: eno. Private to "noue": u. Private to "noyée": yé.

"noue" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "noyée" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • noue ← nnoue · noeu · nuoe · onue

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "noue" and "noyée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\nu\ versus \nwa.je\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "noue" or "noyée"?
"noue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,457 in our French list, against #28,666 for "noyée". 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 "noue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "noyée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #129,522 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "noue" and "noyée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noués vs noyée". 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 #129,522 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