brujovsbúhoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#18,173
“brujo” frequency rank
#27,125
“búho” frequency rank
45298
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature brujo búho
Definition Varón que posee o al que se le adjudican poderes mágicos, especialmente de origen religioso (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 brujo and búho

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. brujo runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against búho's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
brujo
4 ch
búho

Why the eye confuses brujo with búho

A purely visual mix-up. brujo ([ˈbɾuxo]) 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 45298, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

brujo is recorded at frequency rank #18,173, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈbɾuxo]. 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 45298, this pair ranks #132,239 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of brujo vs búho

Shared letters: bo. Private to "brujo": jru. Private to "búho": hú.

"brujo" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "búho" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brujo ← bbrujo · brjuo · brrujo · brujjo · bruoj · burjo · rbujo · vrujo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "brujo" and "búho" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈbɾuxo] versus [ˈbuo]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "brujo" vs "búho" - which ranks higher?
"brujo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,173 in our Spanish list, against #27,125 for "búho". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "brujo" 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 #132,239 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "brujo" and "búho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "búho vs butt". 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 #132,239 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