bussvsbuttTell them apart

Which to use

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

#35,640
“buss” frequency rank
#4,430
“butt” frequency rank
40070
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature buss butt
Definition A kiss. The larger or thicker end of something; the blunt end, in distinction from the sharp or narrow end

Where the eye mixes buss and butt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
buss
4 ch
butt

Visual trap between buss and butt

A purely visual mix-up. buss (/bʌs/) and butt (/bʌt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40070, 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/. butt is at rank #4,430, tagged as anoun, pronounced /bʌt/.

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 40070, this pair ranks #270,951 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of buss vs butt

Shared letters: bu. Private to "buss": s. Private to "butt": t.

"buss" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "butt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bussbbuss · bsus · ubss
  • buttbbutt · btut · ubtt

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "buss" and "butt" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/bʌs/ versus /bʌt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "buss" or "butt"?
"butt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,430 in our English list, against #35,640 for "buss". 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 "buss" and "butt" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "buss" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "butt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #270,951 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "buss" and "butt" 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 #270,951 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