mush
/mʌʃ/
"mush" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“mush” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #29,390. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #29,390
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A somewhat liquid mess, often of food; a soft or semisolid substance.
Corpus desk
Index EN-mush · mush · English
mush · rank #29,390 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #29,390
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH motorsports
Nearest frequency peer: motorsports (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “mush”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Montrose
Montrose
70,614 corpus weight
- Mosley
Mosley
70,613 corpus weight
- motorsports
motorsports
70,612 corpus weight
- mush
mush
70,611 corpus weight
- narcissist
narcissist
70,610 corpus weight
- navigational
navigational
70,609 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “mush” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | mush |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /mʌʃ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #29,390 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “mush” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around mush (IPA /mʌʃ/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #29,390 among 4,057 “M” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for mush, with forms such as "mmush", "msuh", and "muhs". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "must", "myth", "mute", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Probably a variant of mash, or from a dialectal variant of Middle English mos (“mush, pulp, porridge”); compare Middle English appelmos (“applesauce”), from Old English mōs (“food, victuals, porridge, mush”), from Proto-West Germanic *mōs, from Proto-German… The correct English form is mush, spelled M-U-S-H.
Definition
- 1A somewhat liquid mess, often of food; a soft or semisolid substance.
- 2A mixture of noise produced by the harmonics of continuous-wave stations.
- 3The foam of a breaker.
- 4A magmatic body containing a significant proportion of crystals suspended in the liquid phase or melt.
- 5A gun.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how mush appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
His food is of the coarsest kind, consisting for the most part of cornmeal mush, which often finds its way from the wooden tray to his mouth in an oyster shell.
And Rincon was all about surfing. Flash back thirty-odd years, to a skinny kid on a Styrofoam belly-board, pin-wheeling out into the mush of Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
Etymology
Probably a variant of mash, or from a dialectal variant of Middle English mos (“mush, pulp, porridge”); compare Middle English appelmos (“applesauce”), from Old English mōs (“food, victuals, porridge, mush”), from Proto-West Germanic *mōs, from Proto-Germanic *mōsą (“porridge, food”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“wet, fat, dripping”). Cognate with Scots moosh (“mush”), Dutch moes (“pulp, mush, porridge”), German Mus (“jam, puree, mush”), Swedish mos (“pulp, mash, mush”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- mmush
- msuh
- muhs
- mushh
- mussh
- umsh
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of mush - 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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "mush"?
What does "mush" mean?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "mush", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "mush". Here's where to go from here.
- "mush" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "must". View pair
- 6 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #29,390 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "M" letter cohort. M–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.