musty
/ˈmʌsti/
"musty" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“musty” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #35,838. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #35,838
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Affected by dampness or mould; damp, mildewed, mouldy.
Corpus desk
Index EN-musty · musty · English
musty · rank #35,838 · 8 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #35,838
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH muttered
Nearest frequency peer: muttered (+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 “musty”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- mists
mists
64,168 corpus weight
- mobster
mobster
64,167 corpus weight
- Montevideo
Montevideo
64,166 corpus weight
- musty
musty
64,163 corpus weight
- muttered
muttered
64,162 corpus weight
- Neilson
Neilson
64,158 corpus weight
What this shows “musty” 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 | musty |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈmʌsti/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #35,838 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “musty”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around musty (IPA /ˈmʌsti/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #35,838 among 4,057 “M” headwords. Wiktionary lists 6 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for musty, with forms such as "mmusty", "msuty", and "mussty". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mute", "mutt", "MST", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: The adjective is derived from Late Middle English musty; further origin uncertain, possibly from one of the following: * From Anglo-Norman muste, moste, variants of moiste, muiste (“moist”), from Old French moiste (“clammy, damp, moist, wet”) (modern French… The correct English form is musty, spelled M-U-S-T-Y.
Definition
- 1Affected by dampness or mould; damp, mildewed, mouldy.
- 2Having an odour or taste of mould; also (generally), having a stale or unfresh odour or taste.
- 3Characteristic of or relating to mould or mouldiness.
- 4Of attitudes, ideas, writing, or other abstract things: no longer fresh or interesting; outdated, stale.
- 5Of a person: boring and unadventurous; also, old-fashioned, stuck in the past.
- 6Bad-tempered, grumpy, irritable.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how musty appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[W]hẽ his wordes be wel ſifted, men ſhall find little fine flowre in thẽ, but all very muſtie branne, not worthy ſo muche as to fede either horſe or hogges.
O vve muſt not regard vvhat he ſaies man, a Trout, a ſhallovv foole, he ha's no more braine than a Butterflie, a meer ſtuft ſuit, he looks like a muſtie Bottle, nevv vvickerd, his head's the Corke, light, light.
Etymology
The adjective is derived from Late Middle English musty; further origin uncertain, possibly from one of the following: * From Anglo-Norman muste, moste, variants of moiste, muiste (“moist”), from Old French moiste (“clammy, damp, moist, wet”) (modern French moite (“muggy; sticky, sweaty”)), from a blend of Vulgar Latin *mucidus (from Latin mūcidus (“mouldy, musty”), from Old Latin mūceō (“to be mouldy or musty”) + -idus (suffix meaning ‘tending to’, forming adjectives)) + Latin mustum (“unfermented or partially fermented grape juice, must; new wine”) (from mustus (“fresh; young; unfermented”), from Proto-Indo-European *mus-, *mews- (“damp; moss”)). * From another language derived from the above Latin words (compare the cognates below). * A variant of Middle English mosty, moisti (“damp, humid, wet, moisty; of fruit: moist and juicy”) [and other forms] (perhaps influenced by must (“fruit (usually grape) juice which has been or will be fermented”)), from moist, moiste (“damp, humid; moist, wet; well-irrigated, well-watered; liquid; of ale: new; (figuratively) not withered, fresh; carnal, lascivious; raw, undisciplined”) (from Old French moiste: see above) + -i (suffix forming adjectives). Compare Middle French moisi (“mouldy”), an adjective use of the past participle of moisir (“(to cause) to go mouldy, to moulder”) (modern French moisir), from Latin mūcēre, the present active infinitive of Old Latin mūceō (“to be mouldy or musty”): see above. The English word is analysable as must (“mould; mustiness”) + -y (suffix meaning ‘having the quality of’ forming adjectives); however, must is thought to be a back-formation from musty. The noun and verb are derived from the adjective. Cognates * Catalan mústic, musti (“wilted, withered; gloomy, sad”) * Galician murcho, mucho (“wilted, withered”) * Old Occitan moste (Occitan moste, mosti, musti (“damp, wet”) (Gascon)) * Portuguese murcho (“wilted, withered; gloomy, sad”) * Spanish mustio (“wilted, withered; gloomy, sad”)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- mmusty
- msuty
- mussty
- mustty
- mustyy
- musyt
- mutsy
- umsty
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of musty - 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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "musty", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).