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Cite, Sight, and Site
As homophones—words that sound alike but are distinct— cite, sight, and site are easily confused, but they have different meanings, uses, and origins.
Cite is most often encountered in the sense of "to name in a citation"—that is, a line or short section taken from a piece of writing or a speech; it may also mean "to mention as an example" or "to order to appear in a court of law." Cite is from the Latin citare, "to rouse, call on, summon," source too of citation and recite.
Most of the senses of sight are concerned with seeing. A wonderful spectacle might be described as a sight, as might the general capacity to see anything ("my sight is not as good as it once was"). Sight is also used in a number of fixed phrases, such as "out of sight, out of mind," "sight unseen," and "set one's sights on." Sight comes from Old English gesiht, meaning "the faculty or act of sight, thing seen."
Site is most often concerned with location; it is related to situate, "to locate," and situation, "relative position or combination of circumstances at a particular moment." A building site is the place where a building is, or will be, located. In contemporary English, site is frequently used as a shortened form of website, to refer to the location of a group of web pages. Site comes from Latin situs, meaning "place, position, site."
Associating citation with cite, eyesight with sight, and situate with site may be helpful in applying these correctly.
Synonyms
Examples of site in a Sentence
Corina Vanek, The Arizona Republic, 8 Apr. 2024
An excavation in Lincolnshire revealed what appears to be a sacred site
Archaeologists digging through a field in Lincolnshire, England, may have found a 1,300-year-old hermitage on the site of a much more ancient henge.
—Isaac Schultz / Gizmodo, Quartz, 8 Apr. 2024
Tech campuses, including several sites owned by search giant Google dot the vicinity.
—George Avalos, The Mercury News, 8 Apr. 2024
Essential botanical oils crafted in Maui (which are changed with the moon phases), herbs grown on site, and volcanic clay are utilized in body treatments.
—Ingrid Schmidt, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Apr. 2024
Google Search drives 68 percent of traffic to the sites.
—Lorena O'Neil, Rolling Stone, 8 Apr. 2024
The Jerusalem municipality and a coalition of Israeli lawmakers are seeking to evict the agency from its Jerusalem headquarters — the site of frequent protests in recent months by right-wing Israelis calling for UNRWA’s abolition.
—Claire Parker, Washington Post, 8 Apr. 2024
Removing the containers will help safely move the Dali from the wreckage site and allow for safe access to then remove sections of the bridge across the ship’s bow, according to the Key Bridge Response Unified Command.
—USA TODAY, 8 Apr. 2024
These sites include downtown locations such as Carew Tower, as well the site that is now the Samuel Adams Brewery in the West End.
—Elizabeth B. Kim, The Enquirer, 7 Apr. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'site.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Site.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/site. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
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site
noun
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