Which to use
“bunt” and “butts” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,058
- “bunt” frequency rank
- #14,287
- “butts” frequency rank
- 50345
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bunt | butts |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The middle part, cavity, or belly of a sail; the part of a furled sail which is at the center of the yard. | plural of butt |
Where the eye mixes bunt and butts
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bunt runs 4 letters (CVCC) against butts's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses bunt with butts
A purely visual mix-up. bunt (/bʌnt/) and butts (/bʌts/) 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 50345, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bunt is recorded at frequency rank #36,058, classified as anoun, pronounced /bʌnt/. butts is at rank #14,287, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bʌts/.
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 50345, this pair ranks #175,172 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of bunt vs butts
Shared letters: btu. Private to "bunt": n. Private to "butts": s.
"bunt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "butts" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bunt" for "butts" ever safe?
Frequency check: "bunt" vs "butts" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "bunt" and "butts" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bunt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "butts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #175,172 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bunt" and "butts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Bruni vs bunt". 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 #175,172 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.