Which to use
“cire” and “sires” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #9,617
- “cire” frequency rank
- #48,797
- “sires” frequency rank
- 58414
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cire | sires |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ester d'éthylène glycol et d'acides gras. | Pluriel de sire. |
Same sound, different letters: cire vs sires
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - cire / sires
This is the hard kind. cire and sires are pronounced identically (\siʁ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58414, 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\. sires is at rank #48,797, tagged as anoun, pronounced \siʁ\.
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 58414, this pair ranks #109,212 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of cire vs sires
Shared letters: eir. Private to "cire": c. Private to "sires": s.
"cire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "sires" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cire" and "sires" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "cire" or "sires" show up more?
What to do next
"cire" and "sires" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "cire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #109,212 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cire" and "sires" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sires vs sofres". 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 #109,212 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.