Which to use
“lire” and “lyre” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #33,310
- “lire” frequency rank
- #46,595
- “lyre” frequency rank
- 79905
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lire | lyre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Flesh, brawn, or muscle; the fleshy part of a person or animal in contradistinction to the bone and skin. | An ancient stringed musical instrument (a yoke lute chordophone) of Greek origin, consisting of two arms extending from a body to a crossbar (a yoke), and strings, parallel to the soundboard, connecting the body to the yoke. |
Letter map: lire vs lyre
Shared letters muted; letters that set lire and lyre apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. lire and lyre follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Corpus notes: lire and lyre
lire and lyre are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - i in “lire” becomes y in “lyre”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79905, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lire is recorded at frequency rank #33,310, classified as anoun. lyre is at rank #46,595, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈlaɪ.ə/.
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 79905, this pair ranks #21,013 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of lire vs lyre
Shared letters: elr. Private to "lire": i. Private to "lyre": y.
"lire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "lyre" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "lire" and "lyre" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "lire" or "lyre"?
Useful next steps
You've compared "lire" and "lyre". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "lire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lyre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #21,013 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lire" and "lyre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lope vs lyre". 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 #21,013 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.