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Which to use

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

#9,617
“cire” frequency rank
#14,000
“cor” frequency rank
23617
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cire cor
Definition Ester d'éthylène glycol et d'acides gras. (toujours employé au pluriel) Andouiller.

Where the eye mixes cire and cor

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cire
3 ch
cor

Look-alike desk: cire vs cor

A purely visual mix-up. cire (\siʁ\) and cor (\kɔʁ\) 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 23617, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cire is recorded at frequency rank #9,617, classified as anoun, pronounced \siʁ\. cor is at rank #14,000, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kɔʁ\.

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 23617, this pair ranks #351,407 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cire vs cor

Shared letters: cr. Private to "cire": ei. Private to "cor": o.

"cire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cor" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cireccire · cier · cirre · icre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cire" and "cor" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\siʁ\ versus \kɔʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "cire" vs "cor" - which ranks higher?
"cire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,617 in our French list, against #14,000 for "cor". 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 "cire" and "cor" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #351,407 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cire" and "cor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ciro vs cor". 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 #351,407 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