English homophones

bus/buss

"bus" (#1,554 written frequency) beats "buss" (#35,640) in this 2-word /bʌs/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Frequency splits the cluster

These 2 spellings keep the same /bʌs/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "bus" leads at #1,554, with "buss" trailing at #35,640.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "bus" then splits - "bus" (3 letters) vs "buss" (4).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across bus, buss: bsu. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • bus

    3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC

    Inventory bsu · no private letters vs siblings

  • buss

    4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC

    Inventory bsu · no private letters vs siblings

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "bus" when you mean: A motor vehicle for transporting large numbers of people along roads.
  • Write "buss" when you mean: A kiss.

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • bussbbuss · bsus · ubss

Each spelling

bus

noun · /bʌs/ · #1,554 frequency

A motor vehicle for transporting large numbers of people along roads.

buss

noun · /bʌs/ · #35,640 frequency

A kiss.

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (bus, buss). Here's where to go from here.

  • "bus" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #1,554 in English). Full entry
  • Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
  • Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: Berkeley · Barclay. Nearby cluster
  • Each spelling in "bus, buss" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list