cité

/\si.te\/ noun

Letters

4 characters

Frequency Rank

#1,224

in French word usage

Misspellings

6

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

cité is aFrenchnoun. It means: Ville, surtout quand on veut en faire ressortir l’importance. Pronounced \si.te\. It ranks #1,224 in French word frequency. Often confused with Ct and clé.

Key facts for cité
PropertyValue
Headwordcité
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\si.te\
Letters4
Frequency rank#1,224
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for cité is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \si.te\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,224 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for cité, with forms such as "ccité", "cite", and "citté". 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, "Ct", "clé", "CPE", 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 cité, spelled C-I-T-É, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Ville, surtout quand on veut en faire ressortir l’importance.
  2. 2
    Habitants d’une ville ; ensemble des citoyens qui la composent.
  3. 3
    Citoyenneté.
  4. 4
    Constitution de l’État, dans les expressions :
  5. 5
    Territoire composé quelquefois de villes et de bourgades et gouverné par des lois communes.
  6. 6
    Partie la plus ancienne de la ville et où se trouve l’église cathédrale ou principale.
  7. 7
    Groupe de maisons formant un ensemble.
  8. 8
    Groupe de maisons formant un ensemble.
  9. 9
    Dans certaines grandes villes, ensemble de maisons individuelles formant un ensemble clos.
  10. 10
    Banlieue d’une grande ville.
  11. 11
    Ensemble architectural d’habitats collectifs.
  12. 12
    Espace démocratique, réunissant souvent les affaires politiques d’un pays entier ou d’une région, mais nommé cité en référence à Aristote et aux cités-États de jadis, et en référence à la citoyenneté et aux devoirs de citoyen.
  13. 13
    Statut d'une municipalité équivalent au terme anglais city, supérieur à celui d'une ville.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ccité,cite,citté,ciét,ctié,icté

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cité

Misspelling Variants of "cité"

ccité5cite4citté5ciét4ctié4icté4
Misspelling Variants of "cité"

Frequency rank: #1,224 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cité"?
"cité" is spelled C-I-T-É. The IPA pronunciation is \si.te\.
What does "cité" mean?
As a noun, "cité" means: Ville, surtout quand on veut en faire ressortir l’importance.
What words are commonly confused with "cité"?
"cité" is commonly confused with "Ct", "clé", "CPE". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "cité"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "cité" is \si.te\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "cité" come from?
"cité" 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.