Cite or site?
cite is a verb meaning “To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another”; site is a noun meaning “The place where anything is fixed; situation; local position”. Use cite as a verb and site as a noun (site is also a verb: “To situate or place a building or construction project”). They sound the same (/saɪt/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) site is about 35 times as common as cite.
What is the difference between cite and site?
| cite | site | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another To mention; to make mention of informalA citation | The place where anything is fixed; situation; local position A place fitted or chosen for any certain permanent use or occupation To situate or place a building or construction project |
| Example | We used the number of cites as a rough measure of the significance of each published paper | the site of a city or of a house |
| Forms | cites, citing, cited | sites |
| Pronunciation | /saɪt/ | /saɪt/ |
| In writing | 4.7 times per million words | 166 times per million words |
Sources: cite and site in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of cite and site
cite
- 1
To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another
- 2
informalA citation
We used the number of cites as a rough measure of the significance of each published paper
- 3
To mention; to make mention of
- 4
To mention by way of explanation
- 5
To list the source(s) from which one took information, words or literary or verbal context
- 6
To summon officially or authoritatively to appear in court
site
- 1
The place where anything is fixed; situation; local position
the site of a city or of a house
- 2
To situate or place a building or construction project
The U.K. government is dusting off an alternative plan to site the center at a military outfit such as Porton Down
- 3
A place fitted or chosen for any certain permanent use or occupation
a site for a church
- 4
The posture or position of a thing
- 5
A computer installation, particularly one associated with an intranet or internet service or telecommunications
- 6
A website
- 7
A category together with a choice of Grothendieck topology
- 8
Region of a protein, a piece of DNA or RNA where chemical reactions take place
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, cite or site?
cite appears 4.7 times per million words; site 166 times per million words.
cite 4.7 times per million wordssite 166 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search cite vs site?
“cite vs site” is searched about 1,900 times a month on Google and 180 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“site vs cite”, “cite or site”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.