autobusvsautosWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“autobus” and “autos” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#7,149
“autobus” frequency rank
#18,656
“autos” frequency rank
25805
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature autobus autos
Definition Véhicule de transports en commun, sur des lignes urbaines régulières, comptant des places pour voyager assis et d’autres pour voyager debout. Pluriel de auto.

Where the eye mixes autobus and autos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. autobus runs 7 letters (VVCVCVC) against autos's 5 (VVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
autobus
5 ch
autos

Why the eye confuses autobus with autos

A purely visual mix-up. autobus (\o.tɔ.bys\) and autos (\ɔ.to\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25805, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

autobus is recorded at frequency rank #7,149, classified as anoun, pronounced \o.tɔ.bys\. autos is at rank #18,656, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.to\.

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 25805, this pair ranks #338,742 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of autobus vs autos

Shared letters: aostu. Private to "autobus": b. Private to "autos": -.

"autobus" · 7 letters · shape VVCVCVC  ·  "autos" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • autobus ← atuobus · auotbus · autbous · autobbus · autobsu · autobuss · autoubs · auttobus
  • autos ← atuos · auots · autoss · autso · auttos · uatos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "autobus" and "autos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\o.tɔ.bys\ versus \ɔ.to\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "autobus" vs "autos" - which ranks higher?
"autobus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,149 in our French list, against #18,656 for "autos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "autobus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "autos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #338,742 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "autobus" and "autos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "astor vs autos". 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 #338,742 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list