The gender of French nouns very often depends on the word ending
Remembering the gender of French nouns is an aspect of learning French that people often struggle with.
Language learners are baffled when they encounter vocabulary words such as:
- « la masculinité » (masculinity) which is feminine in French
- « le féminisme » (feminism) which is masculine in French
They realize that the gender of French nouns is generally not related to the meaning of those words.
Of course, when nouns represent people, then the gender of those nouns is easy to figure out:
- « une institutrice » (a female teacher) is feminine in French
- « un instituteur » (a male teacher) is masculine in French
But most French nouns do not refer to people, so figuring out their gender is not as straightforward.
As we have seen with the first example above, semantics are of no use in predicting the gender of French nouns. However, the word ending can be very helpful in determining whether that noun is masculine or feminine.
If you are trying to remember the gender of a particular French noun, one helpful strategy is to recall another noun that ends in the same way and whose gender you already know. In many cases, these nouns will share the same gender, allowing you to determine the gender of the noun in question.
We studied tens of thousands of French nouns to see how well this theory holds in practice.
The relationship between the gender of French Nouns and their ending.
We analyzed 62985 French nouns to examine the relationship between word endings and gender. Here is what we found:
Most French nouns which end in ‘ie’ are feminine :
The gender of French nouns ending in “ie” was found to be feminine in 98.5% of the cases.
(8% of French nouns end in “ie” and 98.5% of those are feminine)
Here are some example of French nouns ending in “-ie” which have the feminine grammatical gender:
- une biographie
- une diplomatie
- une utopie
- une philosophie
- une allergie
- une joie
- une bougie
- une copie
- une énergie
- une poésie
- une batterie
- une copie
- une théorie
- une pluie
- une envie
The following French nouns are an exception to this pattern. They have the masculine grammatical gender despite ending in “-ie”.
- un parapluie
- un incendie
French nouns ending in ‘tion’ are almost always feminine :
Most French nouns ending in “-tion” are borrowed from Latin nouns ending in “-tiō”.
As these Latin nouns are typically feminine, the gender of these nouns has been preserved in French.
- “équation” comes from the Latin noun “aequātiō” and both have the feminine grammatical gender
- “inscription” comes from the Latin noun “īnscrīptiō” (f)
- “direction” from “dīrēctiō” (f)
- “fraction” from “frāctiō” (f)
- “complication” from “complicātiō” (f)
- “admiration” from “admīrātiō” (f)
- “option” from “optiō” (f)
- “sanction” from “sānctiō” (f)
Statistically, 4% of French nouns end in ‘tion’ and 99.5% of these are feminine.
Examples:
- une admiration
- une perception
- une fraction
- une sanction
- une direction
- une option
- une complication
- une inauguration
- une inscription
- une compilation
- une équation
There are a very small number of masculine nouns ending in ‘tion’. for example:
- un cation
- un bastion
French nouns ending in ‘eur’ are very often masculine :
3% of French nouns end in “eur” and 96% of those were found to be masculine.
Examples:
- un ordinateur
- un mélangeur
- un honneur
- un vidéoprojecteur
- un coeur
- un ascenseur
- un ambassadeur
- un acteur
Some exceptions include:
- une douceur
- une chaleur
- une couleur
- une fleur
French nouns ending in ‘ge’ are most often masculine :
2.7% of French nouns end in “ge”, and 95% of those were found to be masculine.
Examples:
- un voyage
- un message
- un stage
- un garage
- un étage
- un paysage
- un visage
- un sondage
- un fromage
- un langage
- un piège
- un ouvrage
Some exceptions include:
- une image
- une plage
- une neige
French nouns ending in ‘isme’ are typically always masculine :
French nouns ending in ‘isme’ often represent ideologies or doctrines.
Some of these nouns describe political ideologies such as “socialisme”, philosophical theories such as “existentialisme”, or artistic movements such as “cubisme” and “impressionnisme”.
French nouns ending in “-isme” account for 2.5% of all French nouns, and 100% of these were found to be masculine.
Here are some examples of French nouns ending in ‘isme’:
- le communisme
- le libéralisme
- le socialisme
- le cubisme
- le féminisme
- un civisme
- un séisme
- un fascisme
- un néologisme
- un anglicisme
French nouns ending in ‘té’ are most often feminine :
French nouns ending in ‘-té’ often represent abstract concepts, and many of these are derived from Latin nouns ending in “-tās” which are typically feminine as well.
- The French noun “liberté” is feminine and it comes from the Latin noun “lībertās” (which is also féminine)
- “qualité” (f) comes from the Latin noun “qualitās” (f)
- “vanité” (f) comes from the latin noun “vānitās” (f)
- “amabilité” (f) comes from the Latin noun “amābilitās” (f)
- “civilité” (f) comes from the Latin noun “cīvīlitās” (f)
The gender of French nouns ending in “té” was found to be feminine in 96% of the cases. (2.3% of French nouns end in “té”, 96% of those are feminine)
Examples:
- une liberté
- une solidarité
- une civilité
- une volonté
- une célérité
- une qualité
- une amabilité
- une vanité
- une neutralité
- une authenticité
Exceptions include:
- un comité
- un décolleté
- un aparté
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘ent’ or ‘ant’ (same phonetics) :
2% of French nouns were found to end in “ent” or “ant” and over 99% of those are masculine
Examples:
- un moment
- un gouvernement
- un appartement
- un diamant
- un identifiant
- un déodorant
- un restaurant
- un enfant
- un vent
- un enseignement
- un monument
- un événement
- un classement
- un changement
Some exceptions include:
- une dent
- une jument
French nouns ending in ‘ier’ are typically always masculine :
French nouns ending in “ier” accounted for 1.5% of the words analyzed. These nouns often refer to physical objects and were consistently found to be masculine in gender.
Examples:
- un fichier
- un escalier
- un papier
- un dossier
- un bouclier
- un évier
- un cahier
- un métier
- un panier
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘ien’ :
1.5% of French nouns end in “ien”, and they were all found to be masculine.
Examples: un physicien, un bohémien
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘lle’ :
1.2% of French nouns end in “lle” and 90% of those were feminine.
Examples: une abeille, une corbeille, une bouteille, une feuille
exceptions include: un bacille, un portefeuille
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘et’ :
1% of French nouns end in “et” and those are almost all masculine.
Examples:
- un alphabet
- un objet
- un paquet
- un bracelet
- un sommet
- un trajet
- un sachet
The only feminine word found that ends in ‘et’ is la jet-set
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘ette’ :
French nouns ending in “-ette” often refer to things which are physical objects.
Statistically, 1% of French nouns end in “-ette” and 98% of those are feminine.
Here are some example of French nouns ending in “-ette” which have the feminine grammatical gender:
- une baguette
- une omelette
- une recette
- une assiette
- une serviette
- une bicyclette
- une chaussette
- une casquette
- une miette
- une vinaigrette
- une cachette
Exceptions to this pattern are very few and include: “un squelette”, “un quintette”.
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘ée’ :
About 1% of French nouns end in “ée” and over 90% of those are feminine.
Examples:
- une idée
- une matinée
- une randonnée
- une fumée
- une épée
- une donnée
- une beauté
- une liberté
exceptions include:
- un lycée
- un musée
- un scarabée
- un mausolée
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘in’ :
1% of French nouns end in “in” and 99% of these are masculine.
Examples of French nouns ending in “-in” which have the masculine grammatical gender:
- un dessin
- un matin
- un jardin
- un train
- un magasin
- un coussin
- un chemin
- un lapin
- un vin
- un pain
- un bain
- un soin
Some rare exceptions include: une fin, une putain
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘ence’ or ‘ance’ (same phonetic)
French nouns ending with “ence” or “ance” often refer to concepts or abstract ideas rather than physical objects. This group accounts for approximately 0.8% of the word in this study, and nearly all are feminine.
- une science
- une compétence
- une résistance
- une intelligence
- une confiance
- une dance
- une nuance
- une audience
- une confidence
- une importance
- une ambiance
- une arrogance
- une croissance
- une existence
- une conférence
- une urgence
- une différence
An exception is the French noun “silence” which has the masculine grammatical gender (“un silence”).
French nouns ending in ‘esse’ are typically always feminine :
0.5% of French nouns end in “esse” and all of them were found to be feminine.
Examples:
- une jeunesse
- une sagesse
- une fesse
- une finesse
- une faiblesse
- une maladresse
- une richesse
- une politesse
- une vîtesse
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘eau’ :
0.5% of French nouns end in “eau” and 98% of these were found to be masculine.
Examples:
- un château
- un cadeau
- un oiseau
- un drapeau
- un rideau
- un tableau
- un panneau
- un chapeau
- un niveau
- un morceau
Exceptions include: une eau, une peau
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘ière’ :
0.6% of French nouns end in ‘ière’ and 98% of those are feminine.
Examples: une lumière, une poussière, une théière
Exceptions include: un cimetière
The gender of French nouns ending in ‘oir’ :
0.4% of the French nouns ended in “oir” and those were all found to be masculine
Examples:
- un trottoir
- un soir
- un dortoir
- un couloir
- un pouvoir
- un tiroir
- un miroir
Conclusion
This analysis shows that the ending of French nouns can be very helpful for predicting their gender.
Grammatical gender is one of the more difficult aspects of learning French. Fortunately, it becomes easier once you know the patterns that help predict the gender of French nouns from their endings.
