Which to use
“bus” and “buses” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,508
- “bus” frequency rank
- #47,198
- “buses” frequency rank
- 48706
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bus | buses |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Véhicule de transport en commun routier pouvant transporter plusieurs dizaines de passagers. | Pluriel de buse. |
Where the eye mixes bus and buses
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: bus vs buses
A purely visual mix-up. bus (\bys\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “bus” sits inside “buses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48706, 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\. 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 48706, this pair ranks #176,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of bus vs buses
Shared letters: bsu. Private to "bus": -. Private to "buses": e.
"bus" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "buses" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- buses ← bbuses · bsues · buess · busess · busses · ubses
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bus" for "buses" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "bus" or "buses" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "bus" and "buses" 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 "buses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #176,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bus" 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 #176,677 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.