noyévsnoyersWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#15,949
“noyé” frequency rank
#43,034
“noyers” frequency rank
58983
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature noyé noyers
Definition Personne qui se noie ou qui a péri par noyade. Pluriel de noyer.

Same sound, different letters: noyé vs noyers

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. noyé runs 4 letters (CVVV) against noyers's 6 (CVVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
noyé
6 ch
noyers

Same sound, different spelling - noyé / noyers

This is the hard kind. noyé and noyers are pronounced identically (\nwa.je\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58983, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

noyé is recorded at frequency rank #15,949, classified as anoun, pronounced \nwa.je\. noyers is at rank #43,034, 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 58983, this pair ranks #105,765 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of noyé vs noyers

Shared letters: noy. Private to "noyé": é. Private to "noyers": ers.

"noyé" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "noyers" · 6 letters · shape CVVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • noyers ← nnoyers · noeyrs · noyerrs · noyerss · noyesr · noyres · noyyers · nyoers

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "noyé" and "noyers" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\nwa.je\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "noyé" vs "noyers" - which ranks higher?
"noyé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,949 in our French list, against #43,034 for "noyers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "noyé" / "noyers". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "noyé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "noyers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #105,765 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "noyé" and "noyers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noués vs noyers". 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 #105,765 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