Noire

Noire is the feminine form of the French adjective noir, meaning black. It agrees with feminine nouns: robe noire (black dress), voiture noire (black car). The masculine form is noir, and the plurals are noirs (masculine) and noires (feminine). The word derives from Latin Niger via Old French noir.

In usage, noire is common in color descriptions, fashion, and art, and can appear in compound terms and fixed expressions. A well-known expression is bête noire, literally “black beast,” used to denote something especially disliked or troublesome; here the word noire agrees with the feminine noun bête. In everyday French, the term is neutral and descriptive rather than symbolic.

In English, noire appears primarily in loaned French phrases or proper nouns; the English-language term for the cinema genre is film noir, using the masculine form noir. The feminine form noire is rarely used outside French contexts.

See also: noir, film noir, bête noire.