How to pronounce bush in American English

IPA /bʊʃ/ Syllables 1 · buush Stress 1st syllable

BUUSH

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Americans pronounce bush as BUUSH (/bʊʃ/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Push the bush" or "The bully pushed the bush into the brook" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "bush".

1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

b/b/

Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.

uu/ʊ/

Bring the corners of your lips in slightly so they push forward, but keep them relaxed. Lift the back of your tongue toward the roof of the mouth.

sh/ʃ/

Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.

In real conversation

Hear "bush" in the wild.

Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.

"Push the bush."

PUUSH dhuh BUUSH

"The bully pushed the bush into the brook."

dhuh BUU·lee PUUSHT dhuh BUUSH IHN·tuh dhuh BRUUK

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "bush" different from British English?

American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "BUUSH" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.