musky
/ˈmʌs.ki/
"musky" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“musky” is uncommon English (frequency #57,579 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #57,579
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Resembling or characteristic of musk, especially in scent.
Corpus desk
Index EN-musky · musky · English
musky · rank #57,579 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #57,579
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH muss
Nearest frequency peer: muss (+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.
Long-tail ranks near “musky”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Munk
Munk
42,427 corpus weight
- Murph
Murph
42,426 corpus weight
- musicality
musicality
42,424 corpus weight
- musky
musky
42,422 corpus weight
- muss
muss
42,421 corpus weight
- München
München
42,418 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “musky” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | musky |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈmʌs.ki/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #57,579 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “musky” in English
Rare enough to double-check
musky is uncommon English at frequency #57,579 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈmʌs.ki/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Resembling or characteristic of musk, especially in scent.".
musky has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: From musk + -y. The correct English form is musky, spelled M-U-S-K-Y.
Definition
- 1Resembling or characteristic of musk, especially in scent.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how musky appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
“You got to do something about your yard.” “My yard? We've been over this, Wayne. Why would I allow a seasonal skunk orgy on my land, huh? They ruined my papasan chair with their musky lovemaking. No, no no. These skunks are your problem, Wayne.”
Etymology
From musk + -y.
This word in other languages
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 "musky", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).