bussvsbussesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#35,640
“buss” frequency rank
#37,358
“busses” frequency rank
72998
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature buss busses
Definition A kiss. plural of bus

Letter map: buss vs busses

Shared letters muted; letters that set buss and busses apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. buss runs 4 letters (CVCC) against busses's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
buss
6 ch
busses

Pair insight - buss / busses

buss and busses are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “buss” sits inside “busses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72998, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

buss is recorded at frequency rank #35,640, classified as anoun, pronounced /bʌs/. busses is at rank #37,358, tagged as anoun.

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 72998, this pair ranks #41,080 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of buss vs busses

Shared letters: bsu. Private to "buss": -. Private to "busses": e.

"buss" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "busses" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • buss ← bbuss · bsus · ubss
  • busses ← bbusses · bsuses · buses · busess · bussess · bussse · ubsses

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "buss" for "busses" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “buss” sits inside “busses”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "buss" vs "busses" - which ranks higher?
"buss" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,640 in our English list, against #37,358 for "busses". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "buss" and "busses".

  • Full dictionary entry for "buss" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "busses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #41,080 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "buss" and "busses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "BFS vs buss". 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 #41,080 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