spire

\spiʁ\

/\spiʁ\/ noun

The verdict

“spire” has 7 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #36,164. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#36,164
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords
7
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Le tour d’une spirale.

Corpus desk

Index FR-spire · spire · French

spire · rank #36,164 · 7 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #36,164
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 7 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH souvenons

Nearest frequency peer: souvenons (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « spire »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « spire » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

spire vs sure
60% similar
spire vs suie
60% similar
spire vs suite
60% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for spire
PropertyValue
Headwordspire
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\spiʁ\
Letters5
Frequency rank#36,164
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « spire »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).spirese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « souvenons » (#36,163), « stagner » (#36,165), « soutif » (#36,162). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « spire » est au #36,164. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 7 spelling variants around spire (IPA \spiʁ\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #36,164 among 6,032 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 4 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for spire, with forms such as "psire", "sipre", and "spier". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "sure", "suie", "suite", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is spire, spelled S-P-I-R-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Le tour d’une spirale.
  2. 2
    Base d’une colonne, quand la figure ou le profil de cette base va en serpentant.
  3. 3
    Circuit parcouru par un courant électrique lorsqu’il génère ou subit un champ magnétique.
  4. 4
    Un seul tour du circuit électrique d'une bobine, d’un solénoïde, d’un transformateur, destiné à interagir avec un champ magnétique.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how spire appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Pour cela on commence par dissoudre la matière gommeuse qui réunit les différentes spires les unes aux autres […]
  2. Dans les grandes lampes à quatre manchons, il y a deux spires et un petit réservoir à alcool, en forme de coupelle, installé en dessous des spires de gazéification.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • psire
  • sipre
  • spier
  • spirre
  • sppire
  • sprie
  • sspire

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of spire - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

psire2sipre2spier2spirre1sppire1sprie2sspire1
Edit distance from "spire"

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 "spire"?
"spire" is spelled S-P-I-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \spiʁ\.
What does "spire" mean?
As a noun, "spire" means: Le tour d’une spirale.
What words are commonly confused with "spire"?
"spire" is commonly confused with "sure", "suie", "suite". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "spire"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "spire" is \spiʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "spire" come from?
"spire" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "spire", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list