buttvsbutteTell them apart

Which to use

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

#4,430
“butt” frequency rank
#25,693
“butte” frequency rank
30123
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature butt butte
Definition The larger or thicker end of something; the blunt end, in distinction from the sharp or narrow end An isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top.

Where the eye mixes butt and butte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
butt
5 ch
butte

Look-alike desk: butt vs butte

A purely visual mix-up. butt (/bʌt/) and butte (/ˈbjuːt/) 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 extra letter(s) - “butt” sits inside “butte”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30123, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

butt is recorded at frequency rank #4,430, classified as anoun, pronounced /bʌt/. butte is at rank #25,693, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbjuːt/.

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 30123, this pair ranks #357,162 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of butt vs butte

Shared letters: btu. Private to "butt": -. Private to "butte": e.

"butt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "butte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • buttbbutt · btut · ubtt
  • buttebbutte · btute · butet · ubtte

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "butt" and "butte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/bʌt/ versus /ˈbjuːt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "butt" or "butte"?
"butt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,430 in our English list, against #25,693 for "butte". 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 "butt" and "butte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "butt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "butte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #357,162 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "butt" and "butte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "beaut vs butte". 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 #357,162 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