circvsciscoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#39,213
“circ” frequency rank
#23,137
“cisco” frequency rank
62350
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature circ cisco
Definition Cirque, lieu destiné, chez les Romains, à accueillir les jeux publics Nom donné à plusieurs espèces de corégones des lacs d’Amérique du Nord.

Where the eye mixes circ and cisco

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

4 ch
circ
5 ch
cisco

Visual trap between circ and cisco

A purely visual mix-up. circ (\ˈsiɾk\) and cisco (\sis.ko\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62350, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

circ is recorded at frequency rank #39,213, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈsiɾk\. cisco is at rank #23,137, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sis.ko\.

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 62350, this pair ranks #87,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of circ vs cisco

Shared letters: ci. Private to "circ": r. Private to "cisco": os.

"circ" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "cisco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • circccirc · circc · cirrc · cric · icrc
  • ciscoccisco · cicso · ciscco · cisoc · cissco · csico · icsco

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "circ" for "cisco" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈsiɾk\ versus \sis.ko\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "circ" or "cisco"?
"cisco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,137 in our French list, against #39,213 for "circ". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "circ" and "cisco" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "circ" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cisco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #87,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "circ" and "cisco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "circ 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 #87,605 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