must
/ˈmʌst/
The verdict
“must” is a moderately-common Spanish word, ranked #23,144 in Spanish word frequency and used as a verb.
- #23,144
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Deber, tener que.
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 | must |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈmʌst/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #23,144 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “must” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for must is 4 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmʌst/. Corpus data places it at rank #23,144 in overall Spanish word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Deber, tener que.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for must, with forms such as "mmust", "msut", and "musst". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "muy", "mute", "mu", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct Spanish form is must, spelled M-U-S-T.
Definition
- 1Deber, tener que.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: mmust,msut,musst,mustt,muts,umst
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of must - 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 Spanish corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “must”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is M-U-S-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈmʌst/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “muy” - see the side-by-side comparison. must vs muy
- Browse more Spanish words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Spanish 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.