us'svsUSBConfusable pair

Quick tell: us's is a contraction, USB is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“us's” is a contraction and “USB” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,501
“us's” frequency rank
#7,407
“USB” frequency rank
47908
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature us's USB
Definition Contraction of us + is. Initialism of Universal Serial Bus; a serial bus standard for connecting devices.

Where the eye mixes us's and USB

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

4 ch
us's
3 ch
USB

Visual trap between us's and USB

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: us's is /ˈʌsɪz/ while USB is /ˌjuː ˌɛs ˈbiː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47908, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

us's is recorded at frequency rank #40,501, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ˈʌsɪz/. USB is at rank #7,407, tagged as aname, pronounced /ˌjuː ˌɛs ˈbiː/.

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 47908, this pair ranks #198,038 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of us's vs USB

Shared letters: su. Private to "us's": -. Private to "USB": b.

"us's" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "USB" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "us's" and "USB" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "us's" is a contraction and "USB" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "us's" vs "USB" - which ranks higher?
"USB" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,407 in our English list, against #40,501 for "us's". 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 "us's" and "USB" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "us's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "USB" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #198,038 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "us's" and "USB" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "UAS vs us's". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #198,038 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