sir
\ˈsɝ\
The verdict
“sir” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #5,610) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #5,610
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Titre pour un chevalier, placé devant son prénom avec ou sans son nom de famille, mais non pas devant seulement son nom de famille.
Corpus desk
Index FR-sir · sir · French
sir · rank #5,610 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #5,610
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH révélation
Nearest frequency peer: révélation (-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.
Voisins de fréquence du confusable « sir »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- réparation
réparation
94,394 corpus weight
- réunit
réunit
94,393 corpus weight
- révélation
révélation
94,392 corpus weight
- sir
sir
94,391 corpus weight
- solidaire
solidaire
94,390 corpus weight
- Stephen
Stephen
94,389 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « sir » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
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 | sir |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ˈsɝ\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,610 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « sir »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for sir is neighbouring look-alikes ("st", "su", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \ˈsɝ\. Frequency #5,610 among 6,032 “S” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for sir, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "st", "su", "so", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is sir, spelled S-I-R.
Definition
- 1Titre pour un chevalier, placé devant son prénom avec ou sans son nom de famille, mais non pas devant seulement son nom de famille.
- 2Monsieur. Pour s’adresser de façon polie à un homme.
- 3Mon commandant, mon lieutenant, etc. S’adresse de façon polie à un supérieur.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sir appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
“Good morning, sir.” “Good morning, gentlemen,” I replied.
— Alfred, have you got my location? — Only just, sir. There’s more interference than usual.
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
How do you spell "sir"?
What does "sir" mean?
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sir", not the corpus desk frequency band.