thirdvstiréTell them apart

Which to use

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

#27,988
“third” frequency rank
#2,548
“tiré” frequency rank
30536
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature third tiré
Definition Troisième. Abattu, amaigri, qui témoigne d’usure, de fatigue (en parlant du visage, des traits).

Where the eye mixes third and tiré

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

5 ch
third
4 ch
tiré

Look-alike desk: third vs tiré

A purely visual mix-up. third (\ˈθɝd\) and tiré (\ti.ʁe\) 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 30536, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

third is recorded at frequency rank #27,988, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈθɝd\. tiré is at rank #2,548, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ti.ʁe\.

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 30536, this pair ranks #309,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of third vs tiré

Shared letters: irt. Private to "third": dh. Private to "tiré": é.

"third" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "tiré" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • thirdhtird · thhird · thidr · thirdd · thirrd · thrid · tihrd · tthird

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "third" and "tiré" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈθɝd\ versus \ti.ʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "third" or "tiré" show up more?
"tiré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,548 in our French list, against #27,988 for "third". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "third" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tiré" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #309,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "third" and "tiré" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Thiam vs third". 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 #309,645 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