like the back end of a bus
"like-the-back-end-of-a-bus" is a 20-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“like the back end of a bus” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a prep_phrase. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 26
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Very unattractive.
Corpus desk
Index EN-like-the-back-end-of-a-b · like the back end of a bus · English
like the back end of a bus · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 26 letters
- VOW-8 8 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | like the back end of a bus |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Prep_phrase |
| Letters | 26 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “like the back end of a bus” in English
Rare enough to double-check
like the back end of a bus is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aprep_phrase. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Very unattractive.".
like the back end of a bus doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is like the back end of a bus, spelled L-I-K-E- -T-H-E- -B-A-C-K- -E-N-D- -O-F- -A- -B-U-S.
Definition
- 1Very unattractive.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how like the back end of a bus appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Not really fighting over her (puns aside). When you get a current beau and an ex, full of booze and testosterone, meeting up, their common interest isn't much of an issue in the subsequent display of machismo. I think she looks like the back end of a bus but, to them, she was a 'possession'.
Must admit, I like the *original* 911s - the original, late-1960s ones back before they fitted bulgey wheelarches and silly tea-tray rear spoilers. They look much more like delicate, precision instruments compared with the later 'sledgehammer" versions [which IMHO are about as attractive as the back end of a bus].
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.