Which to use
“brûlé” is an adjective and “buse” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,533
- “brûlé” frequency rank
- #32,321
- “buse” frequency rank
- 39854
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | brûlé | buse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui a été soumis à l’action du feu, a subi une brûlure. | Oiseau de proie, rapace diurne (falconiforme) de la famille des accipitridés, du genre Buteo, au plumage brun tacheté et que l’on considère comme dépourvu d’intelligence et dont il existe plusieurs espèces en Europe. |
Where the eye mixes brûlé and buse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Look-alike desk: brûlé vs buse
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: brûlé is \bʁy.le\ while buse is \byz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39854, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
brûlé is recorded at frequency rank #7,533, classified as anadj, pronounced \bʁy.le\. buse is at rank #32,321, tagged as anoun, pronounced \byz\.
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 39854, this pair ranks #244,875 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of brûlé vs buse
Shared letters: b. Private to "brûlé": lréû. Private to "buse": esu.
"brûlé" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "buse" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- buse ← bbuse · bsue · bues · busse · ubse
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "brûlé" for "buse" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "brûlé" or "buse" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "brûlé" and "buse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "brûlé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "buse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #244,875 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "brûlé" and "buse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bury vs buse". 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 #244,875 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.