circus

\siʁ.kys\

/\siʁ.kys\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“circus” has 9 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #31,884. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#31,884
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
9
tracked misspellings
16
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nom scientifique des oiseaux du genre busard.

Corpus desk

Index FR-circus · circus · French

circus · rank #31,884 · 9 variants · 16 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #31,884
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 16 pairs
  • VAR-MID 9 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH cinquantenaire

Nearest frequency peer: cinquantenaire (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « circus »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « circus » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

circus vs crus
67% similar
circus vs Cyrus
50% similar
circus vs CROUS
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for circus
PropertyValue
Headwordcircus
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\siʁ.kys\
Letters6
Frequency rank#31,884
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs16
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « circus »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).circusse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « cinquantenaire » (#31,883), « clairvoyance » (#31,885), « ciblant » (#31,882). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « circus » est au #31,884. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 9 spelling variants around circus (IPA \siʁ.kys\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #31,884 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Nom scientifique des oiseaux du genre busard.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for circus, with forms such as "ccircus", "cicrus", and "circcus". 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 16 confusable-pair relationships, "crus", "Cyrus", "CROUS", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is circus, spelled C-I-R-C-U-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Nom scientifique des oiseaux du genre busard.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how circus appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Le nom scientifique du busard cendré est circus pygargus.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • ccircus
  • cicrus
  • circcus
  • circsu
  • circuss
  • cirrcus
  • cirucs
  • cricus
  • icrcus

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of circus - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

ccircus1cicrus2circcus1circsu2circuss1cirrcus1cirucs2cricus2
Edit distance from "circus"

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "circus"?
"circus" is spelled C-I-R-C-U-S. The IPA pronunciation is \siʁ.kys\.
What does "circus" mean?
As a noun, "circus" means: Nom scientifique des oiseaux du genre busard.
What words are commonly confused with "circus"?
"circus" is commonly confused with "crus", "Cyrus", "CROUS". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "circus"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "circus" is \siʁ.kys\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "circus" come from?
"circus" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "circus", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

cheffe#31,879concis#31,896coteau#31,905bourne#31,857

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (9 here; floor ≥5).

Cassidy9 variantsCoralie9 variantscôtier9 variantsdispos9 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list