inspire
\ɛ̃s.piʁ\
The verdict
“inspire” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #5,468 in French word frequency and used as a verb.
- #5,468
- frequency rank, French
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 13
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de inspirer.
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 | inspire |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ɛ̃s.piʁ\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #5,468 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “inspire” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for inspire is 7 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ɛ̃s.piʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #5,468 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for inspire, with forms such as "innspire", "inpsire", and "insipre". 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 13 confusable-pair relationships, "Issoire", "inspirer", "inspirée", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is inspire, spelled I-N-S-P-I-R-E.
Definition
- 1Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de inspirer.
- 2Troisième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de inspirer.
- 3Première personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de inspirer.
- 4Troisième personne du singulier du présent du subjonctif de inspirer.
- 5Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif de inspirer.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: innspire,inpsire,insipre,inspier,inspirre,insppire,insprie,insspire,isnpire,nispire
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of inspire - 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 “inspire”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is I-N-S-P-I-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ɛ̃s.piʁ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Issoire” - see the side-by-side comparison. inspire vs Issoire
- 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.