sbire
\zbiʁ\
The verdict
“sbire” is uncommon French (frequency #63,342 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,342
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nom qu’on donnait en Italie à un archer, agent de la police.
Corpus desk
Index FR-sbire · sbire · French
sbire · rank #63,342 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #63,342
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH sataniste
Nearest frequency peer: sataniste (-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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « sbire »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Sandberg
Sandberg
36,663 corpus weight
- sanglot
sanglot
36,662 corpus weight
- sanhédrin
sanhédrin
36,661 corpus weight
- sataniste
sataniste
36,660 corpus weight
- sbire
sbire
36,659 corpus weight
- scintillante
scintillante
36,657 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « sbire » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sbire |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \zbiʁ\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #63,342 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « sbire » en français
Rare enough to double-check
sbire is uncommon French at frequency #63,342 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \zbiʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for sbire in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is sbire, spelled S-B-I-R-E.
Definition
- 1Nom qu’on donnait en Italie à un archer, agent de la police.
- 2Homme à tout faire, homme de main que l’on emploie à des opérations de basse police.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sbire appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
… si bien que les pauvres diables de sbires (ce sont les archers de la police), sont obligés d’avoir une carte particulière des rues de Rome et des lieux où ils peuvent passer en poursuivant un malfaiteur.
Mais tout à coup ce prélat, prenant avec lui deux cents soldats de Rimini et tous les sbires de la Toscane, alla occuper Santo-Marino, et réclama le vingt-cinq octobre le serment d’hommage pour le pape.
This word in other languages
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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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sbire", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).