musket
/ˈmʌskət/
"musket" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“musket” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #32,931 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #32,931
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 11
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 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 ...
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) |
Where “musket” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for musket is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmʌskət/. Corpus data places it at rank #32,931 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
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).
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
How do you spell "musket"?
What does "musket" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "musket"?
How do you pronounce "musket"?
What is the origin of the word "musket"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “musket”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is M-U-S-K-E-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmʌskət/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “must” - see the side-by-side comparison. musket vs must
- 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.