sharevssireWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“share” and “sire” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#642
“share” frequency rank
#16,586
“sire” frequency rank
17228
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature share sire
Definition A portion of something, especially a portion given or allotted to someone. A lord, master, or other person in authority, most commonly used vocatively: formerly in speaking to elders and superiors, later only when addressing a sovereign.

Where the eye mixes share and sire

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
share
4 ch
sire

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. share (/ʃɛə/) and sire (/saɪə(ɹ)/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17228, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

share is recorded at frequency rank #642, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃɛə/. sire is at rank #16,586, tagged as anoun, pronounced /saɪə(ɹ)/.

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 17228, this pair ranks #452,788 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of share vs sire

Shared letters: ers. Private to "share": ah. Private to "sire": i.

"share" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "sire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sharehsare · sahre · shaer · sharre · shhare · shrae · sshare
  • sireisre · sier · sirre · srie · ssire

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "share" and "sire" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ʃɛə/ versus /saɪə(ɹ)/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "share" or "sire"?
"share" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #642 in our English list, against #16,586 for "sire". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list