Which to use
“Sire” is a noun and “ste” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48,488
- “Sire” frequency rank
- #25,778
- “ste” frequency rank
- 74266
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Sire | ste |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | veraltete (französische) Höflichkeitsanrede für Männer, insbesondere oder ausschließlich dem König/Kaiser vorbehalten | 2. Person Plural Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs biti |
Letter map: Sire vs ste
Shared letters muted; letters that set Sire and ste apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for Sire / ste
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Sire is anoun and steaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74266, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Sire is recorded at frequency rank #48,488, classified as anoun, pronounced [ziːɐ̯]. ste is at rank #25,778, tagged as averb, pronounced […].
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 74266, this pair ranks #337,981 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of Sire vs ste
Shared letters: es. Private to "Sire": ir. Private to "ste": t.
"Sire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "ste" · 3 letters · shape CCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- Sire ← isre · sier · sirre · srie · ssire
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Sire" for "ste" ever safe?
In ordinary German text, does "Sire" or "ste" show up more?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Sire" and "ste".
- Full dictionary entry for "Sire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "ste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #337,981 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Sire" and "ste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sil vs Sire". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #337,981 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.