bu
[by]
The verdict
“bu” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #15,054) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #15,054
- frequency rank, German
- 5,818
- “B” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Partizip Perfekt Maskulinum Singular des Verbs boire
Corpus desk
Index DE-bu · bu · German
bu · rank #15,054 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #15,054
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,818
- PHOTO-FINISH brüllen
Nearest frequency peer: brüllen (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “bu”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- brennende
brennende
84,950 corpus weight
- bro
bro
84,949 corpus weight
- brüllen
brüllen
84,948 corpus weight
- bu
bu
84,947 corpus weight
- Buchhaltung
Buchhaltung
84,946 corpus weight
- Bundesebene
Bundesebene
84,945 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “bu” sits against the nearest ranked German headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bu |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | [by] |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #15,054 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Wo “bu” in der deutschen Häufigkeit sitzt
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for bu is neighbouring look-alikes ("by", "Bus", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced [by]. Frequency #15,054 among 5,818 “B” headwords. Gloss: "Partizip Perfekt Maskulinum Singular des Verbs boire".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for bu, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "by", "Bus", "BVB", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct German form is bu, spelled B-U.
Definition
- 1Partizip Perfekt Maskulinum Singular des Verbs boire
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "bu"?
What does "bu" mean?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
What to do next
You've looked up "bu". Here's where to go from here.
- "bu" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "by". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #15,054 among German headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more German words in the "B" letter cohort. B–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.