búfalovsBuffaloWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: búfalo is a noun, Buffalo is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“búfalo” is a noun and “Buffalo” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,124
“búfalo” frequency rank
#30,788
“Buffalo” frequency rank
57912
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature búfalo Buffalo
Definition Mamífero artiodáctilo de la familia de los bóvidos (Bovidae). Poblaba las planicies de toda Norteamérica desde el norte de México, interior de Estados Unidos, y hasta Canadá. Tiene un pelaje de color marrón oscuro durante el invierno, y uno más liviano de color marrón claro durante el verano. Llegan a medir hasta 1,60 m de alto y 3 m de largo, y pesan de 450 a 1350 kg. es una ciudad del Estado de Nueva York Estados Unidos

Same sound, different letters: búfalo vs Buffalo

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. búfalo runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against Buffalo's 7 (CVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
búfalo
7 ch
Buffalo

Ear matches; page differs - búfalo and Buffalo

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: búfalo and Buffalo carry the same recorded pronunciation, [ˈbufalo]. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other aname, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57912, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

búfalo is recorded at frequency rank #27,124, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈbufalo]. Buffalo is at rank #30,788, tagged as aname, pronounced [buˈfalo].

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 57912, this pair ranks #68,561 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of búfalo vs Buffalo

Shared letters: abflo. Private to "búfalo": ú. Private to "Buffalo": u.

"búfalo" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "Buffalo" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Buffalo ← bbuffalo · bfufalo · bufaflo · bufalo · buffallo · buffaol · bufflao · ubffalo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "búfalo" and "Buffalo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "búfalo" is a noun and "Buffalo" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "búfalo" or "Buffalo" show up more?
"búfalo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,124 in our Spanish list, against #30,788 for "Buffalo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "búfalo" / "Buffalo". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "búfalo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Buffalo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,561 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "búfalo" and "Buffalo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Buffalo vs búscalo". 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 #68,561 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