cite
/saɪt/verb, noun
cite is spelled C-I-T-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “cite vs site” about 1,900 times a month (Google, United States). As a verb, cite means “To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in cite?
| Letters | 4: C-I-T-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.7 times per million words; the 11,685th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is cite?
Cite appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce cite?
- /saɪt/
Cite has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-cite.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with cite
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: sight, site (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with cite?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as cite.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: tice, etic.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of cite
- cites present, singular, he/she/it, plural
- citing participle, present
- cited participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does cite mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To quote; to repeat, as a passage from a book, or the words of another.
- 2
To mention; to make mention of.
- 3
To mention by way of explanation.
- 4
To list the source(s) from which one took information, words or literary or verbal context.
- 5
To summon officially or authoritatively to appear in court.
noun
- 1
informalA citation.
We used the number of cites as a rough measure of the significance of each published paper.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cite in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense quote:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | citar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does cite come from?
From Old French citer, from Latin citare (“to cause to move, excite, summon”), frequentative of ciēre (“to rouse, excite, call”). Sense 4 is the original one.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).