busboy
/ˈbʌsˌbɔɪ/
"busboy" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“busboy” is uncommon English (frequency #91,324 among 4,121 “B” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #91,324
- frequency rank, English
- 4,121
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An assistant waiter; one who clears plates from and cleans tables.
Corpus desk
Index EN-busboy · busboy · English
busboy · rank #91,324 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #91,324
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,121
- PHOTO-FINISH bushcraft
Nearest frequency peer: bushcraft (+1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “busboy”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- buka
buka
8,680 corpus weight
- bunter
bunter
8,679 corpus weight
- busboy
busboy
8,677 corpus weight
- bushcraft
bushcraft
8,676 corpus weight
- caduceus
caduceus
8,673 corpus weight
- campagna
campagna
8,669 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “busboy” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | busboy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbʌsˌbɔɪ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #91,324 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “busboy” in English
Rare enough to double-check
busboy is uncommon English at frequency #91,324 among 4,121 “B” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈbʌsˌbɔɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An assistant waiter; one who clears plates from and cleans tables.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for busboy, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: Clipping of omnibus (“assistant waiter”) + boy. The correct English form is busboy, spelled B-U-S-B-O-Y.
Definition
- 1An assistant waiter; one who clears plates from and cleans tables.
Etymology
Clipping of omnibus (“assistant waiter”) + boy.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "busboy", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).