shirevssiteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“shire” and “site” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#48,114
“shire” frequency rank
#301
“site” frequency rank
48415
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature shire site
Definition condado ver saite, sítio

Where the eye mixes shire and site

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

5 ch
shire
4 ch
site

Visual trap between shire and site

A purely visual mix-up. shire (/ʃaɪə(ɹ)/) and site (/ˈsaj.ʧi/) 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 48415, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

shire is recorded at frequency rank #48,114, classified as anoun, pronounced /ʃaɪə(ɹ)/. site is at rank #301, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈsaj.ʧi/.

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 48415, this pair ranks #16,754 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of shire vs site

Shared letters: eis. Private to "shire": hr. Private to "site": t.

"shire" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "site" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • shirehsire · shhire · shier · shirre · shrie · sihre · sshire
  • siteiste · siet · sitte · ssite · stie

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "shire" and "site" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ʃaɪə(ɹ)/ versus /ˈsaj.ʧi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "shire" or "site" show up more?
"site" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #301 in our Portuguese list, against #48,114 for "shire". 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 "shire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "site" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,754 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "shire" and "site" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shire vs sire". 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 #16,754 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list