Masculine or Feminine?

French noun gender, in brief

Every French noun is either masculine or feminine. There is no neutral gender, and the choice changes the words around the noun: le or la, un or une, and the ending of most adjectives. Type a word above to look it up, or start with the complete guide to French noun gender.

Studies of French vocabulary put the share of nouns whose gender you can guess from the ending at around 80 percent. The rest have to be learned one word at a time, which is what this tool is for. It covers more than 140,000 nouns, from everyday vocabulary to first names, countries, and rivers.

Common questions

How do you know if a French noun is masculine or feminine?

No rule works every time, but the ending of a word predicts its gender most of the time. Endings such as -age, -ment, -eau, -isme, -ing, and -oir are usually masculine. Endings such as -tion, -sion, -te, -ette, -ance, -ence, -ie, and -ure are usually feminine. Enough common words break these patterns that it is still worth checking a word you are unsure about.

Is it "le" or "la"?

Use "le" before a masculine singular noun and "la" before a feminine singular noun. Both shorten to "l'" in front of a vowel or a silent h, which hides the gender, so "l'avion" is masculine and "l'eau" is feminine even though they look alike. The plural "les" is the same for both genders.

Do French nouns have the same gender as the matching word in English or Spanish?

No. Gender belongs to the French word itself, not to its meaning, so the English word tells you nothing. Spanish often disagrees too: "la leche" is feminine in Spanish while "le lait" is masculine in French.

Can the same French noun be both masculine and feminine?

A small number can, and the gender changes the meaning. "Le livre" is a book and "la livre" is a pound. "Le tour" is a lap or a trip and "la tour" is a tower. A few job titles now accept either gender with no change in meaning. Words like these appear as "masculine or feminine" in the results.

Does a noun keep its gender in the plural?

Yes. The gender never changes. In the plural you use "les" or "des" and plural adjective agreement, and the article simply stops showing whether the word is masculine or feminine.

Where does the word data come from?

Common nouns come from the DELA French electronic dictionary. Proper nouns such as names, countries, and rivers come from Wikidata. Both sources and their licenses are credited at the bottom of every page.