mosquito
/mɒˈskiː.təʊ/
"mosquito" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mosquito” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #12,810 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #12,810
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A small flying insect of the family Culicidae, the females of which bite humans and animals and suck blood, leaving an itching bump on the skin, and sometimes carrying diseases like malaria, dengue...
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 | mosquito |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mɒˈskiː.təʊ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #12,810 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mosquito” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for mosquito is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /mɒˈskiː.təʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #12,810 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A small flying insect of the family Culicidae, the females of which bite humans and animals and suck blood, leaving an itching bump on the skin, and sometimes carrying diseases like malaria, dengue...".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for mosquito, with forms such as "mmosquito", "moqsuito", and "mosqiuto". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "mesquite", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Spanish mosquito (“gnat”), diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca (“fly”), from Proto-Indo-European *mūs- (“fly, stinging fly, gnat”). Cognate with West Flemish meuzie (“mosquito”), dialectal Swedish mausa (“fly”), Lithuanian musė (“a f… The correct English form is mosquito, spelled M-O-S-Q-U-I-T-O.
Definition
- 1A small flying insect of the family Culicidae, the females of which bite humans and animals and suck blood, leaving an itching bump on the skin, and sometimes carrying diseases like malaria, dengue and yellow fever.
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish mosquito (“gnat”), diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca (“fly”), from Proto-Indo-European *mūs- (“fly, stinging fly, gnat”). Cognate with West Flemish meuzie (“mosquito”), dialectal Swedish mausa (“fly”), Lithuanian musė (“a fly”) and Sicilian muschitta (“midge”). See also midge. First attested in the 1580s.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: mmosquito,moqsuito,mosqiuto,mosqquito,mosquiot,mosquitto,mosqutio,mossquito,mosuqito,msoquito,omsquito
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mosquito - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "mosquito"?
What does "mosquito" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "mosquito"?
How do you pronounce "mosquito"?
What is the origin of the word "mosquito"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “mosquito”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-O-S-Q-U-I-T-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /mɒˈskiː.təʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “mesquite” - see the side-by-side comparison. mosquito vs mesquite
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English 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.