Which to use
“bast” and “busts” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #47,486
- “bast” frequency rank
- #23,188
- “busts” frequency rank
- 70674
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bast | busts |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Inner bark of a tree from which rope is traditionally made. | plural of bust |
Where the eye mixes bast and busts
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bast runs 4 letters (CVCC) against busts's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: bast vs busts
A purely visual mix-up. bast (/bɑːst/) and busts (/bʌsts/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70674, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bast is recorded at frequency rank #47,486, classified as anoun, pronounced /bɑːst/. busts is at rank #23,188, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bʌsts/.
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 70674, this pair ranks #49,591 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bast vs busts
Shared letters: bst. Private to "bast": a. Private to "busts": u.
"bast" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "busts" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "bast" and "busts" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "bast" or "busts" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "bast" and "busts" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bast" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "busts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #49,591 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bast" and "busts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bast vs BFS". 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 #49,591 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.