BusvsbussConfusable pair

Quick tell: Bus is a noun, buss is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Bus” is a noun and “buss” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,626
“Bus” frequency rank
#33,500
“buss” frequency rank
35126
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Bus buss
Definition als Verkehrsmittel im öffentlichen Personennahverkehr eingesetztes vielsitziges, großes Kraftfahrzeug zur Beförderung einer größeren Anzahl von Personen 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs bussen

Same sound, different letters: Bus vs buss

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

3 ch
Bus
4 ch
buss

Ear matches; page differs - Bus and buss

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: Bus and buss carry the same recorded pronunciation, [bʊs]. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “Bus” sits inside “buss”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35126, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Bus is recorded at frequency rank #1,626, classified as anoun, pronounced [bʊs]. buss is at rank #33,500, tagged as averb, pronounced [bʊs].

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 35126, this pair ranks #1,647,446 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Bus vs buss

Shared letters: bsu. Private to "Bus": -. Private to "buss": -.

"Bus" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "buss" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bussbbuss · bsus · buß · ubss

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Bus" and "buss" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Bus" is a noun and "buss" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Bus" or "buss" show up more?
"Bus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,626 in our German list, against #33,500 for "buss". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "Bus" / "buss". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Bus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "buss" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,647,446 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Bus" and "buss" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "buss vs Bussi". 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 #1,647,446 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