búhovsbultoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,125
“búho” frequency rank
#15,792
“bulto” frequency rank
42917
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature búho bulto
Definition (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. Paquete o bolsa grande que se emplea para el transporte de mercancía, especialmente el mayorista, o para el equipaje en los viajes.

Where the eye mixes búho and bulto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
búho
5 ch
bulto

Why the eye confuses búho with bulto

A purely visual mix-up. búho ([ˈbuo]) and bulto ([ˈbul̪t̪o]) 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 42917, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

búho is recorded at frequency rank #27,125, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈbuo]. bulto is at rank #15,792, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈbul̪t̪o].

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 42917, this pair ranks #145,554 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of búho vs bulto

Shared letters: bo. Private to "búho": . Private to "bulto": ltu.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bultobbulto · bluto · bullto · bulot · bultto · butlo · ublto · vulto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "búho" for "bulto" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈbuo] versus [ˈbul̪t̪o]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "búho" or "bulto"?
"bulto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,792 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "búho" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bulto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #145,554 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "búho" and "bulto" 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 #145,554 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