must
/mʌst/verb, noun
must is spelled M-U-S-T. The wrong spelling people search most is muste: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 60 of all searches for the word. Must is a verb meaning “To do as a requirement; indicates that the sentence subject is required as an imperative or directive to…”.
How many letters and syllables are in must?
| Letters | 4: M-U-S-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 479 times per million words; the 197th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, muste, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell must?
Must is spelled M-U-S-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 60 of the searches for must in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is must?
Must appears 479 times per million words in written English, the 197th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce must?
- /məst/
- /məs/
- /mʌst/
Must has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-must.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-must.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with must
Sounds like: mussed, musth (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: mus'.
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with must?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as must.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: smut, stum.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of must
- musts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- musting participle, present
- musted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does must mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To do as a requirement; indicates that the sentence subject is required as an imperative or directive to execute the sentence predicate, with failure to do so resulting in a failure or negative consequence.
You must arrive in class on time.
- 2
To do with certainty; indicates that the speaker is certain that the subject will have executed the predicate.
If it has rained all day, it must be very wet outside.
- 3
Used to indicate that something is very likely, probable, or certain to be true.
The children must be asleep by now.
- 4
To make musty.
- 5
To become musty.
noun
- 1
Something that is mandatory, required or recommended.
If you're trekking all day, a map is a must.
- 2
The property of being stale or musty.
- 3
Something that exhibits the property of being stale or musty.
- 4
Fruit juice that will ferment or has fermented, usually from grapes.
- 5
Alternative spelling of musth.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Must in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | devoir , must, obligation , moût m or mout |
| German | müssen , Muss , Most |
| Portuguese | dever , mosto |
| Spanish | deber, deber de , mosto |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does must come from?
From Middle English moste ("must", literally, "had to", the past tense of Middle English moten (“to have to”)), from Old English mōste (“had to”), 1st & 3rd person singular past tense of mōtan (“to be allowed, be able to, have the opportunity to, be compelled to, must, may”), from Proto-Germanic *mōtaną. Cognate with Dutch moest (“had to”), German musste (“had to”), Swedish måste (“must, have to, be obliged to”). More at mote.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).