sire
/saɪə(ɹ)/
"sire" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sire” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #16,586 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #16,586
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - 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.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sire |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /saɪə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #16,586 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sire” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sire is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /saɪə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #16,586 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for sire, with forms such as "isre", "sier", and "sirre". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "six", "sit", "sue", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sire, from Old French sire, the nominative singular of seignor; from Latin senior, from senex. Doublet of seigneur, seignior, senhor, senior, señor, senyor, signore, and sir. Cognate with French monsieur. The correct English form is sire, spelled S-I-R-E.
Definition
- 1A lord, master, or other person in authority, most commonly used vocatively: formerly in speaking to elders and superiors, later only when addressing a sovereign.
- 2A male animal that has fathered a particular offspring (especially used of domestic animals and/or in biological research).
- 3A father; the head of a family; the husband.
- 4A creator; a maker; an author; an originator.
- 5The vampire who turned another person.
Etymology
From Middle English sire, from Old French sire, the nominative singular of seignor; from Latin senior, from senex. Doublet of seigneur, seignior, senhor, senior, señor, senyor, signore, and sir. Cognate with French monsieur.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: isre,sier,sirre,srie,ssire
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sire - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “sire”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-I-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /saɪə(ɹ)/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “six” - see the side-by-side comparison. sire vs six
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.