bu
The verdict
“bu” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #5,636 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #5,636
- frequency rank, French
- 2
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Absorbé, en parlant d’un liquide ou de sentiment (les sentiments étaient autrefois considérés comme des humeurs, au sens propre de quelque chose d’humide).
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 | bu |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #5,636 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bu” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for bu is 2 letters long, classified as an adjective. Corpus data places it at rank #5,636 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for bu in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "by", "BV", "BX", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is bu, spelled B-U.
Definition
- 1Absorbé, en parlant d’un liquide ou de sentiment (les sentiments étaient autrefois considérés comme des humeurs, au sens propre de quelque chose d’humide).
- 2Ivre.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "bu"?
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Using “bu”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is B-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “by” - see the side-by-side comparison. bu vs by
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French 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.