musical
/ˈmju.zɪ.kəl/
"musical" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“musical” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,955 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #2,955
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Of, belonging or relating to music, or to its performance or notation.
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 | musical |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈmju.zɪ.kəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #2,955 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “musical” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for musical is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmju.zɪ.kəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,955 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for musical, with forms such as "mmusical", "msuical", and "muiscal". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "musician", "mystical", "musically", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English musical, from Old French [Term?], from Medieval Latin mūsicālis, from Latin mūsica (“music”) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives); equivalent to music + -al. The correct English form is musical, spelled M-U-S-I-C-A-L.
Definition
- 1Of, belonging or relating to music, or to its performance or notation.
- 2Pleasing to the ear; sounding agreeably; having the qualities of music; melodious; harmonious.
- 3Fond of music; discriminating with regard to music; gifted or skilled in music.
- 4Pertaining to a class of games in which players move while music plays, but have to take a fixed position when it stops; by extension, any situation where people repeatedly change positions.
Etymology
From Middle English musical, from Old French [Term?], from Medieval Latin mūsicālis, from Latin mūsica (“music”) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives); equivalent to music + -al.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: mmusical,msuical,muiscal,muscial,musiacl,musicall,musiccal,musicla,mussical,umsical
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of musical - 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 "musical"?
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Using “musical”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-U-S-I-C-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmju.zɪ.kəl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “musician” - see the side-by-side comparison. musical vs musician
- 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.