Which to use
“Cir” is a name and “circa” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #29,282
- “Cir” frequency rank
- #42,230
- “circa” frequency rank
- 71512
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Cir | circa |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cyr. | À peu près, aux environs de, vers. |
Letter map: Cir vs circa
Shared letters muted; letters that set Cir and circa apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Part-of-speech tell for Cir / circa
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Cir is aname and circaapreposition. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “Cir” sits inside “circa”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71512, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Cir is recorded at frequency rank #29,282, classified as aname. circa is at rank #42,230, tagged as aprep, pronounced \siʁ.ka\.
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 71512, this pair ranks #47,305 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of Cir vs circa
Shared letters: cir. Private to "Cir": -. Private to "circa": a.
"Cir" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "circa" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- circa ← ccirca · cicra · cirac · circca · cirrca · crica · icrca
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Cir" for "circa" ever safe?
Which is more common, "Cir" or "circa"?
After this comparison
Pair "Cir" vs "circa" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "Cir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "circa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #47,305 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Cir" and "circa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "circa 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 #47,305 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.