cire

/\siʁ\/ noun

Letters

4 characters

Frequency Rank

#9,617

in French word usage

Misspellings

4

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

cire is aFrenchnoun. It means: Ester d'éthylène glycol et d'acides gras. Pronounced \siʁ\. It ranks #9,617 in French word frequency. Often confused with CR and cru.

Key facts for cire
PropertyValue
Headwordcire
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\siʁ\
Letters4
Frequency rank#9,617
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of cire in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for cire is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \siʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #9,617 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for cire, with forms such as "ccire", "cier", and "cirre". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CR", "cru", "clé", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is cire, spelled C-I-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Ester d'éthylène glycol et d'acides gras.
  2. 2
    Matière molle, très fusible et jaunâtre, avec laquelle les abeilles construisent les gâteaux de leurs ruches et qu’on emploie à différents usages, dans les arts, dans l’économie domestique, etc.
  3. 3
    Produit ménager, parfois à base de cire d'abeille, utilisé pour entretenir et faire briller les objets en bois.
  4. 4
    Matière plastique à chaud et rigide à froid.
  5. 5
    Luminaire d’une église.
  6. 6
    Composition faite de laque et d’autres matières, à laquelle on donne diverses couleurs et dont on se sert pour cacheter les lettres.
  7. 7
    Humeur épaisse et jaune qui se forme dans les oreilles. → voir cérumen
  8. 8
    Résine, assez semblable à la cire des abeilles, qui coule de certains arbres et qu’on appelle cire végétale.
  9. 9
    Membrane ayant l’aspect de la cire, qu’on remarque à la base du bec de certains oiseaux.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ccire,cier,cirre,icre

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cire

Misspelling Variants of "cire"

ccire5cier4cirre5icre4
Misspelling Variants of "cire"

Frequency rank: #9,617 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cire"?
"cire" is spelled C-I-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \siʁ\.
What does "cire" mean?
As a noun, "cire" means: Ester d'éthylène glycol et d'acides gras.
What words are commonly confused with "cire"?
"cire" is commonly confused with "CR", "cru", "clé". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "cire"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "cire" is \siʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "cire" come from?
"cire" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.