Which to use
“bus” and “buse” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,508
- “bus” frequency rank
- #32,321
- “buse” frequency rank
- 33829
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bus | buse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Véhicule de transport en commun routier pouvant transporter plusieurs dizaines de passagers. | 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 bus and buse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between bus and buse
A purely visual mix-up. bus (\bys\) and buse (\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 extra letter(s) - “bus” sits inside “buse”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33829, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bus is recorded at frequency rank #1,508, classified as anoun, pronounced \bys\. 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 33829, this pair ranks #288,011 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of bus vs buse
Shared letters: bsu. Private to "bus": -. Private to "buse": e.
"bus" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "buse" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- buse ← bbuse · bsue · bues · busse · ubse
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bus" for "buse" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "bus" or "buse" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "bus" and "buse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bus" 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 #288,011 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bus" 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 #288,011 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.