English homophones

cite/sight/site

"cite" is a verb; "sight" is a noun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #30 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage 2026-09-03

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "cite" arrives as a verb, while "sight" is a noun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

No shared spelling stem: "cite" is 4 letters, "sight" is 5; only the sound ties them.
No shared spelling stem: "cite" is 4 letters, "site" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Shared stem "si" then splits - "sight" (5 letters) vs "site" (4).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across cite, sight, site: it. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

cite
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory ceit · private ce
sight
5 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCCC
Inventory ghist · private ghs
site
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCV
Inventory eist · private es

Pick the spelling from the meaning

Write "cite" when you mean: To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another.
Write "sight" when you mean: The ability to see.
Write "site" when you mean: The place where anything is fixed; situation; local position

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

cite ← ccite · ciet · citte · ctie · icte
sight ← isght · sgiht · sigght · sighht · sightt · sigth
site ← iste · siet · sitte · ssite · stie

Each spelling

cite

verb · /saɪt/ · #11,666 frequency

To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another.

sight

noun · /saɪt/ · #2,808 frequency

The ability to see.

site

noun · /saɪt/ · #613 frequency

The place where anything is fixed; situation; local position

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 3-spelling cluster (cite, sight, site). Here's where to go from here.

"site" is the most frequent headword in this 3-spelling cluster (rank #613 in English). Full entry
Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 3 spellings ranks #30 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
Explore a nearby 3-spelling cluster: shoe · chou · shoo. Nearby cluster
Grammar often disambiguates this cluster, match the meaning to the part of speech before picking a spelling. Pick by meaning

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.