musket
/ˈmʌskət/
"musket" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“musket” has 9 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #32,931. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #32,931
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 11
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A kind of firearm formerly carried by the infantry of an army, originally fired by means of a match, or matchlock, for which several mechanical appliances (including the flintlock, and finally the ...
Corpus desk
Index EN-musket · musket · English
musket · rank #32,931 · 9 variants · 11 confusables
- FREQ-MID #32,931
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 11 pairs
- VAR-MID 9 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH mulch
Nearest frequency peer: mulch (-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.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “musket”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- motivator
motivator
67,073 corpus weight
- mulch
mulch
67,071 corpus weight
- musket
musket
67,070 corpus weight
- nance
nance
67,068 corpus weight
- needn't
needn't
67,066 corpus weight
- Nestor
Nestor
67,065 corpus weight
What this shows “musket” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | musket |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmʌskət/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #32,931 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 11 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “musket”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 9 spelling variants around musket (IPA /ˈmʌskət/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #32,931 among 4,057 “M” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for musket, with forms such as "mmusket", "msuket", and "mukset". 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 11 confusable-pair relationships, "must", "muster", "mussel", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested around 1210 as a surname, and later in the 1400s as a word for the sparrowhawk (Middle English forms: musket, muskett, muskete (“sparrow hawk”)), from Middle French mousquet, from Old Italian moschetto (a diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Lat… The correct English form is musket, spelled M-U-S-K-E-T.
Definition
- 1A kind of firearm formerly carried by the infantry of an army, originally fired by means of a match, or matchlock, for which several mechanical appliances (including the flintlock, and finally the percussion lock) were successively substituted; ultimately superseded by the rifle.
- 2A male Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how musket appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Soldier, soldier, won't you marry me, with your musket, fife and drum.
Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket.
Etymology
First attested around 1210 as a surname, and later in the 1400s as a word for the sparrowhawk (Middle English forms: musket, muskett, muskete (“sparrow hawk”)), from Middle French mousquet, from Old Italian moschetto (a diminutive of mosca (“fly”), from Latin musca) used to refer initially to a sparrowhawk (given its small size or speckled appearance) and then a crossbow arrow. The name was subsequently adopted for a heavier, shoulder-fired version of an arquebus, adhering to a pattern of naming firearms and cannons after birds of prey and similar creatures (compare falcon, falconet), a sense which was also borrowed into French and then (around 1580) into English. Cognate to Spanish mosquete, Portuguese mosquete. Smoothbore firearms continued to be called muskets even as they switched from using matchlocks to flintlocks to percussion locks, but with the advent of rifled muskets, the word was finally displaced by rifle.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- mmusket
- msuket
- mukset
- musekt
- muskett
- muskket
- muskte
- mussket
- umsket
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of musket - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "musket", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (9 here; floor ≥5).