brunvsbuWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: brun is a adjective, bu is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“brun” is an adjective and “bu” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,026
“brun” frequency rank
#15,054
“bu” frequency rank
63080
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature brun bu
Definition braun Partizip Perfekt Maskulinum Singular des Verbs boire

Letter map: brun vs bu

Shared letters muted; letters that set brun and bu apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
brun
2 ch
bu

Part-of-speech tell for brun / bu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: brun is anadjective and buaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63080, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

brun is recorded at frequency rank #48,026, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. bu is at rank #15,054, tagged as averb, pronounced [by].

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 63080, this pair ranks #689,551 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of brun vs bu

Shared letters: bu. Private to "brun": nr. Private to "bu": -.

"brun" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "bu" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brunbbrun · brnu · brrun · brunn · rbun

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "brun" for "bu" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "brun" is an adjective and "bu" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "brun" or "bu"?
"bu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,054 in our German list, against #48,026 for "brun". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "brun" vs "bu" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "brun" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #689,551 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "brun" and "bu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "brun vs puzzles". 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 #689,551 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list