English homophones
muscle/mussel
"muscle" (#3,379 written frequency) beats "mussel" (#39,926) in this 2-word /ˈmʌs.əl/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /ˈmʌs.əl/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "muscle" leads at #3,379, with "mussel" trailing at #39,926.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "mus" then splits - "muscle" (6 letters) vs "mussel" (6).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across muscle, mussel: elmsu. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
muscle
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCCV
Inventory celmsu · private c
mussel
6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCVC
Inventory elmsu · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "muscle" when you mean: A contractile form of tissue which animals use to effect movement.
- Write "mussel" when you mean: Any of several groups of bivalve shellfish with elongated, asymmetrical shells.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
Each spelling
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (muscle, mussel). Here's where to go from here.
- "muscle" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #3,379 in English). Full entry
- Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
- Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: marvelous · marvellous. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "muscle, mussel" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.