cité
\si.te\
The verdict
“cité” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #1,224 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,224
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Ville, surtout quand on veut en faire ressortir l’importance.
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 | cité |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \si.te\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,224 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cité” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for cité is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, 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 generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for cité, with forms such as "ccité", "cite", and "citté". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Ct", "clé", "CPE", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is cité, spelled C-I-T-É.
Definition
- 1Ville, surtout quand on veut en faire ressortir l’importance.
- 2Habitants d’une ville ; ensemble des citoyens qui la composent.
- 3Citoyenneté.
- 4Constitution de l’État, dans les expressions :
- 5Territoire composé quelquefois de villes et de bourgades et gouverné par des lois communes.
- 6Partie la plus ancienne de la ville et où se trouve l’église cathédrale ou principale.
- 7Groupe de maisons formant un ensemble.
- 8Groupe de maisons formant un ensemble.
- 9Dans certaines grandes villes, ensemble de maisons individuelles formant un ensemble clos.
- 10Banlieue d’une grande ville.
- 11Ensemble architectural d’habitats collectifs.
- 12Espace 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.
- 13Statut 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
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of cité - 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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “cité”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-I-T-É - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \si.te\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Ct” - see the side-by-side comparison. cité vs Ct
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French 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.