Muss
[mʊs]
The verdict
“Muss” is in the everyday core of German, ranked #83 in German word frequency and used as a noun.
- #83
- frequency rank, German
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - etwas, das absolut notwendig ist
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Muss |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [mʊs] |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #83 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Muss” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for Muss is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [mʊs]. Corpus data places it at rank #83 in overall German word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "etwas, das absolut notwendig ist".
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for Muss, with forms such as "mmuss", "msus", and "muß". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Mut", "must", "Mute", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct German form is Muss, spelled M-U-S-S.
Definition
- 1etwas, das absolut notwendig ist
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: mmuss,msus,muß,umss
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Muss - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “Muss”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is M-U-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [mʊs] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Mut” - see the side-by-side comparison. Muss vs Mut
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.