nourricevsnourriesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#22,955
“nourrice” frequency rank
#41,929
“nourries” frequency rank
64884
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nourrice nourries
Definition Femme qui allaite l’enfant d’une autre. Féminin pluriel de nourri.

Where the eye mixes nourrice and nourries

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. nourrice (CVVCCVCV) and nourries (CVVCCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
nourrice
8 ch
nourries

Why the eye confuses nourrice with nourries

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: nourrice is \nu.ʁis\ while nourries is \nu.ʁi\. 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 64884, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nourrice is recorded at frequency rank #22,955, classified as anoun, pronounced \nu.ʁis\. nourries is at rank #41,929, tagged as anadj, pronounced \nu.ʁi\.

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 64884, this pair ranks #74,900 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of nourrice vs nourries

Shared letters: einoru. Private to "nourrice": c. Private to "nourries": s.

"nourrice" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV  ·  "nourries" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nourrice ← nnourrice · norurice · nourice · nourirce · nourrcie · nourricce · nourriec · nuorrice
  • nourries ← nnourries · noruries · nouries · nourires · nourreis · nourriess · nourrise · nuorries

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nourrice" and "nourries" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "nourrice" is a noun and "nourries" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "nourrice" or "nourries" show up more?
"nourrice" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,955 in our French list, against #41,929 for "nourries". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "nourrice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nourries" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,900 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nourrice" and "nourries" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nourrie vs nourries". 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 #74,900 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