buddyvsbyConfusable pair

Which to use

“buddy” and “by” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#16,110
“buddy” frequency rank
#1,627
“by” frequency rank
17737
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature buddy by
Definition Kumpel, Kamerad Stadt

Letter map: buddy vs by

Shared letters muted; letters that set buddy and by apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

5 ch
buddy
2 ch
by

Spelling & dictionary notes on buddy vs by

buddy and by are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17737, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

buddy is recorded at frequency rank #16,110, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. by is at rank #1,627, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 17737, this pair ranks #1,924,736 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of buddy vs by

Shared letters: by. Private to "buddy": du. Private to "by": -.

"buddy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "by" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • buddybbuddy · bdudy · buddyy · budy · budyd · ubddy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "buddy" and "by" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 3 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "buddy" or "by"?
"by" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,627 in our German list, against #16,110 for "buddy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "buddy" and "by".

  • Full dictionary entry for "buddy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "by" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,924,736 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "buddy" and "by" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "buddy 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 #1,924,736 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