bochovsbúhoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“bocho” and “búho” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#45,780
“bocho” frequency rank
#27,125
“búho” frequency rank
72905
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bocho búho
Definition Cabeza. (Strigidae) Ave nocturna, indígena de España, de unos 40 cm. de altura, de color mezclado de rojo y negro, calzada de plumas, con el pico corvo, los ojos grandes y colocados en la parte anterior de la cabeza, sobre la cual tiene plumas alzadas que figuran orejas.

Where the eye mixes bocho and búho

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. bocho runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against búho's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
bocho
4 ch
búho

Look-alike desk: bocho vs búho

A purely visual mix-up. bocho ([ˈbot͡ʃo]) and búho ([ˈbuo]) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72905, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bocho is recorded at frequency rank #45,780, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈbot͡ʃo]. búho is at rank #27,125, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈbuo].

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 72905, this pair ranks #24,405 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bocho vs búho

Shared letters: bho. Private to "bocho": c. Private to "búho": ú.

"bocho" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "búho" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bocho ← bbocho · bcoho · boccho · bochho · bocoh · bohco · obcho · vocho

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bocho" and "búho" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([ˈbot͡ʃo] versus [ˈbuo]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "bocho" or "búho" show up more?
"búho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,125 in our Spanish list, against #45,780 for "bocho". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "bocho" and "búho" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bocho" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "búho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,405 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bocho" and "búho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "baco vs bocho". 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 #24,405 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list