pus
/pʌs/
"pus" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pus” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #28,336 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #28,336
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A whitish-yellow or yellow substance composed primarily of dead white blood cells and dead pyogenic bacteria, normally found in regions of bacterial infection.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pus |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pʌs/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #28,336 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pus” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for pus is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pʌs/. Corpus data places it at rank #28,336 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A whitish-yellow or yellow substance composed primarily of dead white blood cells and dead pyogenic bacteria, normally found in regions of bacterial infection.".
pus has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PV", "PW", "PX", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English pus (15th c.), a borrowing from Latin pus (“pus”). Widely displaced quitter and atter in this sense. The correct English form is pus, spelled P-U-S.
Definition
- 1A whitish-yellow or yellow substance composed primarily of dead white blood cells and dead pyogenic bacteria, normally found in regions of bacterial infection.
Etymology
From Middle English pus (15th c.), a borrowing from Latin pus (“pus”). Widely displaced quitter and atter in this sense.
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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Using “pus”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pʌs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “PV” - see the side-by-side comparison. pus vs PV
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.