blousevsblushWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“blouse” and “blush” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#17,557
“blouse” frequency rank
#13,671
“blush” frequency rank
31228
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature blouse blush
Definition A shirt, typically loose and reaching from the neck to the waist. An act of blushing; a pink or red glow on the face caused by embarrassment, shame, shyness, love, etc.

Where the eye mixes blouse and blush

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. blouse runs 6 letters (CCVVCV) against blush's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
blouse
5 ch
blush

Look-alike desk: blouse vs blush

A purely visual mix-up. blouse (/blaʊs/) and blush (/blʌʃ/) 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 31228, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

blouse is recorded at frequency rank #17,557, classified as anoun, pronounced /blaʊs/. blush is at rank #13,671, tagged as anoun, pronounced /blʌʃ/.

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 31228, this pair ranks #347,930 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of blouse vs blush

Shared letters: blsu. Private to "blouse": eo. Private to "blush": h.

"blouse" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "blush" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • blouse ← bblouse · bllouse · blosue · bloues · blousse · bluose · boluse · lbouse
  • blush ← bblush · bllush · blsuh · bluhs · blushh · blussh · bulsh · lbush

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "blouse" for "blush" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/blaʊs/ versus /blʌʃ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "blouse" or "blush"?
"blush" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,671 in our English list, against #17,557 for "blouse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "blouse" and "blush" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "blouse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "blush" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #347,930 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "blouse" and "blush" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "blush vs bolus". 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 #347,930 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list