Which to use
“fire” and “fires” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #501
- “fire” frequency rank
- #5,417
- “fires” frequency rank
- 5918
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fire | fires |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A (usually self-sustaining) chemical reaction involving the bonding of oxygen with carbon or other fuel, with the production of heat and the presence of flame or smouldering. | plural of fire |
Where the eye mixes fire and fires
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. fire (/ˈfaɪ.ə/) and fires (/ˈfaɪ̯ə(ɹ)z/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “fire” sits inside “fires”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fire is recorded at frequency rank #501, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈfaɪ.ə/. fires is at rank #5,417, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈfaɪ̯ə(ɹ)z/.
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 5918, this pair ranks #513,512 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of fire vs fires
Shared letters: efir. Private to "fire": -. Private to "fires": s.
"fire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "fires" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC