ciblevscidreTell them apart

Which to use

“cible” and “cidre” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,511
“cible” frequency rank
#16,832
“cidre” frequency rank
19343
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cible cidre
Definition Sorte de planche servant de but pour le tir à l’arc ou avec des armes à feu. Boisson faite par fermentation alcoolique de jus de pommes pressurées.

Where the eye mixes cible and cidre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
cible
5 ch
cidre

Visual trap between cible and cidre

A purely visual mix-up. cible (\sibl\) and cidre (\sidʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19343, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cible is recorded at frequency rank #2,511, classified as anoun, pronounced \sibl\. cidre is at rank #16,832, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sidʁ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 19343, this pair ranks #373,739 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cible vs cidre

Shared letters: cei. Private to "cible": bl. Private to "cidre": dr.

"cible" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "cidre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ciblecbile · ccible · cibble · cibel · ciblle · cilbe · icble
  • cidreccidre · cdire · ciddre · cider · cidrre · cirde · icdre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cible" and "cidre" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\sibl\ versus \sidʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cible" or "cidre"?
"cible" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,511 in our French list, against #16,832 for "cidre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cible" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cidre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #373,739 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cible" and "cidre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cidre vs ciro". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #373,739 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list