burevsbusesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#29,261
“bure” frequency rank
#47,198
“buses” frequency rank
76459
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bure buses
Definition Étoffe grossière faite de laine rousse. Pluriel de buse.

Where the eye mixes bure and buses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
bure
5 ch
buses

Look-alike desk: bure vs buses

A purely visual mix-up. bure (\byʁ\) and buses (\byz\) 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 76459, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bure is recorded at frequency rank #29,261, classified as anoun, pronounced \byʁ\. buses is at rank #47,198, 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 76459, this pair ranks #31,094 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of bure vs buses

Shared letters: beu. Private to "bure": r. Private to "buses": s.

"bure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "buses" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • burebbure · brue · buer · burre · ubre
  • busesbbuses · bsues · buess · busess · busses · ubses

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bure" and "buses" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\byʁ\ versus \byz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "bure" vs "buses" - which ranks higher?
"bure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,261 in our French list, against #47,198 for "buses". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "bure" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "buses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #31,094 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bure" and "buses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "busan vs buses". 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 #31,094 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