Why is the first ordinal irregular?

One is the only French ordinal that does not use the -ième suffix. It is premier in the masculine and première in the feminine, abbreviated 1er and 1re. Every other ordinal from two upward is regular and built with -ième.

How is the -ième suffix formed?

Take the cardinal and add -ième, with a few spelling tweaks: drop a final mute e (quatre becomes quatrième), add a u after cinq (cinquième), and change the f of neuf to v (neuvième). The plural s of vingts and cents is dropped before the suffix.

What is the correct modern abbreviation?

Modern French abbreviates ordinals as the number followed by a superscript e, written here as 2e, 3e, and so on. The first is 1er for masculine and 1re for feminine. The older forms with eme or ieme are discouraged.

When do I use second instead of deuxième?

Both mean second. The traditional guidance is to use second and seconde when there are only two items in the series, and deuxième when there are more than two. In everyday use deuxième is the safe default, which is what the tool returns.

Does gender affect ordinals other than the first?

In writing, ordinals from two upward use the same -ième form for both genders, so deuxième serves masculine and feminine alike. Only premier changes to première, which is why the gender toggle here affects the number one only.

French Ordinal Words

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This tool turns a number into its French ordinal form, the word you use for rankings and sequences such as first, second, and third. French ordinals are regular from two onward but have one important irregular case at one, plus a handful of spelling tweaks that this tool gets right.

How it works

For 1, the tool returns the irregular premier (masculine) or première (feminine), abbreviated 1er or 1re. For every number from 2 up, it spells the cardinal and applies the -ième suffix with these adjustments:

quatre -> quatrième      (drop final mute e)
cinq   -> cinquième      (add u)
neuf   -> neuvième       (f becomes v)
quatre-vingts -> quatre-vingtième  (drop plural s)

The abbreviation for two and above is the number followed by a superscript e, shown here as 2e, 3e, 21e, and so on.

Tips and notes

Use the gender toggle only for one: premier versus première. From two upward, the written ordinal is the same for both genders, so deuxième covers masculine and feminine alike. If your text has exactly two items, second and seconde are the traditional choice over deuxième; the tool notes this for the number two. For spelling out the underlying cardinals, including Belgian and Swiss variants, see the companion French number-to-words tool.