serrésvssiresWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: serrés is a adjective, sires is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“serrés” is an adjective and “sires” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,565
“serrés” frequency rank
#48,797
“sires” frequency rank
63362
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature serrés sires
Definition Masculin pluriel de serré. Pluriel de sire.

Where the eye mixes serrés and sires

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. serrés runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against sires's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
serrés
5 ch
sires

Visual trap between serrés and sires

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: serrés is \se.ʁe\ while sires is \siʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63362, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

serrés is recorded at frequency rank #14,565, classified as anadj, pronounced \se.ʁe\. 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 63362, this pair ranks #82,325 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of serrés vs sires

Shared letters: ers. Private to "serrés": é. Private to "sires": i.

"serrés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "sires" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sires ← isres · siers · siress · sirres · sirse · sries · ssires

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "serrés" and "sires" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "serrés" is an adjective and "sires" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "serrés" vs "sires" - which ranks higher?
"serrés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,565 in our French list, against #48,797 for "sires". 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 "serrés" and "sires" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "serrés" 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 #82,325 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "serrés" 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 #82,325 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