Which to use
“sire” and “sires” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #9,914
- “sire” frequency rank
- #48,797
- “sires” frequency rank
- 58711
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sire | sires |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Seigneur. | Pluriel de sire. |
Same sound, different letters: sire vs sires
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. sire runs 4 letters (CVCV) against sires's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - sire / sires
This is the hard kind. sire 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 extra letter(s) - “sire” sits inside “sires”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58711, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sire is recorded at frequency rank #9,914, 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 58711, this pair ranks #107,392 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sire vs sires
Shared letters: eirs. Private to "sire": -. Private to "sires": -.
"sire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "sires" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sire" and "sires" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "sire" vs "sires" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "sire" / "sires". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "sire" 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 #107,392 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sire" 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 #107,392 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.