nuevsnuitWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#5,681
“nue” frequency rank
#356
“nuit” frequency rank
6037
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nue nuit
Definition Synonyme de nuage. Période qui s’écoule entre le coucher de soleil et le lever du soleil.

Where the eye mixes nue and nuit

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
nue
4 ch
nuit

Visual trap between nue and nuit

A purely visual mix-up. nue (\ny\) and nuit (\nɥi\) 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 6037, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nue is recorded at frequency rank #5,681, classified as anoun, pronounced \ny\. nuit is at rank #356, tagged as anoun, pronounced \nɥi\.

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 6037, this pair ranks #427,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nue vs nuit

Shared letters: nu. Private to "nue": e. Private to "nuit": it.

"nue" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "nuit" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nuitniut · nnuit · nuitt · nuti · unit

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "nue" and "nuit" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ny\ versus \nɥi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "nue" or "nuit" show up more?
"nuit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #356 in our French list, against #5,681 for "nue". 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 "nue" and "nuit" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "nue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nuit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #427,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nue" and "nuit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "noués vs nue". 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 #427,358 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