Which to use
“busted” is an adjective and “butted” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,003
- “busted” frequency rank
- #48,109
- “butted” frequency rank
- 58112
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | busted | butted |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having a certain type of bust (breasts; cleavage). | simple past and past participle of butt |
Where the eye mixes busted and butted
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. busted and butted follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: busted vs butted
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: busted is /ˈbʌs.tɪd/ while butted is /ˈbʌtɪd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - s in “busted” becomes t in “butted”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58112, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
busted is recorded at frequency rank #10,003, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈbʌs.tɪd/. butted is at rank #48,109, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈbʌtɪd/.
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 58112, this pair ranks #114,809 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of busted vs butted
Shared letters: bdetu. Private to "busted": s. Private to "butted": -.
"busted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "butted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "busted" for "butted" ever safe?
Frequency check: "busted" vs "butted" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "busted" and "butted" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "busted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "butted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #114,809 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "busted" and "butted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "buoyed vs butted". 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 #114,809 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.