sitevssitesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#613
“site” frequency rank
#1,878
“sites” frequency rank
2491
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature site sites
Definition The place where anything is fixed; situation; local position plural of site

Where the eye mixes site and sites

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
site
5 ch
sites

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. site (/saɪt/) and sites (/saɪts/) 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) - “site” sits inside “sites”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2491, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

site is recorded at frequency rank #613, classified as anoun, pronounced /saɪt/. sites is at rank #1,878, tagged as anoun, pronounced /saɪts/.

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 2491, this pair ranks #524,835 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of site vs sites

Shared letters: eist. Private to "site": -. Private to "sites": -.

"site" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "sites" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • siteiste · siet · sitte · ssite · stie
  • sitesistes · siets · sitess · sitse · sittes · ssites · sties

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "site" and "sites" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/saɪt/ versus /saɪts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "site" or "sites"?
"site" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #613 in our English list, against #1,878 for "sites". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list