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Gender of French Nouns

John Walker (kelvin@fourmilab.ch) wrote the original version of this document titled «Le Truc de Genres», 27 septembre 1993, which is abstracted here with his permission.

For students of French whose maternal language is English, memorization of the gender of each noun they learn is quite tedious. Mr. Walker noticed that most nouns which end in certain letters have uniform genders. Using an Excel spreadsheet he did a study of more than 18,000 French nouns to find the most useful endings to predict the gender of a noun. The results are found below.

By learning the following 40 word endings, you can correctly identify the gender of 75% of French nouns with an accuracy of close to 95%. These rules correctly predict the gender of more than 13398 nouns you'd otherwise have to memorise.

Masculine Nouns

Except the main noted exceptions, all the words which end with the letters below are masculine.

Ending #Words  %Prec    Main Exceptions
-age     964    99%     cage plage image nage page rage
-an      104    95%     médian maman
-c       128    98%     fac
-d       184    97%
-eme      51    90%
-g        83    99%
-i       216    91%     merci fourmi foi loi
-in      293    96%     main fin
-is      189    93%     brebis fois souris oasis
-iste    147    97%     modiste liste piste
-k        48    98%
-l       389    89%
-lon      89    98%
-m       156    97%     faim
-non      35    97%
-o       186    82%     météo dactylo dynamo steno magnéto moto
-ome      50    96%
-r      1556    89%     mer chair minceur douceur froideur grandeur
                        profondeur odeur largeur valeur fleur couleur
                        soeur peur vapeur erreur horreur cour tour
-ron      73   100%
-sme     407   100%
-t      1976    98%     forêt nuit dent part plupart
-taire    34    94%
-ton      65   100%
-tre     195    87%     fenêtre huître vitre rencontre montre lettre
-u       332    97%     eau peau vertu
-us      100    95%
        ----    ---
        8050    95%

Feminine

Except the main noted exceptions, all the words which end with the letters below are feminine.

Ending #Words  %Prec    Main Exceptions
-ade     128    95%     jade grade stade
-aison    37   100%
-ce      500    89%     espace crustace exercice bénéfice office artifice
                        précipice dentifrice armistice vice service 
                        silence prince commerce pouce
-ee      233    89%     lycée périgée trophée pedigree musée
-ie     1034    98%     incendie périhélie génie foie parapluie
-iere    110    97%     arrière derrière cimetière
-ine     277    91%     domaine capitaine ciné pipeline moine patrimoine
                        magazine
-ion    1530    97%     ion million billion camion dominion lampion
                        scorpion espion bastion avion
-ite     739    94%     trilobite anthracite plébiscite gîte graphite
                        satellite théodolite comité ermite termite
                        granite rite mérite site opposite
-lle     303    87%     intervalle vermicelle scelle braille mille
                        gorille vaudeville
-se      533    85%     vase malaise suspense sconse opposé exposé gypse
                        inverse colosse carrosse pamplemousse
-tte     327    98%     squelette
-ude      47    94%     prélude interlude coude
-ure     339    90%     dinosaure centaure kilowattheure parjure murmure 
                        trichosure sulfure/nitrure/...
        ----    ---
        6137    93%

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