nulvsnullesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,417
“nul” frequency rank
#18,810
“nulles” frequency rank
20227
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature nul nulles
Definition Égal à zéro, en parlant d’un nombre, d’une grandeur ou d’une valeur. Féminin pluriel de nul.

Same sound, different letters: nul vs nulles

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

3 ch
nul
6 ch
nulles

Same sound, different spelling - nul / nulles

This is the hard kind. nul and nulles are pronounced identically (\nyl\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 3 extra letter(s) - “nul” sits inside “nulles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20227, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

nul is recorded at frequency rank #1,417, classified as anadj, pronounced \nyl\. nulles is at rank #18,810, tagged as anadj, pronounced \nyl\.

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 20227, this pair ranks #369,349 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of nul vs nulles

Shared letters: lnu. Private to "nul": -. Private to "nulles": es.

"nul" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "nulles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • nullesnlules · nnulles · nulels · nules · nulless · nullse · unlles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "nul" and "nulles" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\nyl\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "nul" vs "nulles" - which ranks higher?
"nul" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,417 in our French list, against #18,810 for "nulles". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "nul" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "nulles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #369,349 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "nul" and "nulles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Nelle vs nulles". 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 #369,349 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