Muscle

How to spell muscle

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce muscle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does muscle mean?

1. nounA band of fibrous tissue in the body that contracts to produce movement.
2. verbTo force one's way into a place, role, or activity by sheer effort or pressure.

Muscle in a sentence

• noun

  He pulled a muscle in his back while lifting boxes.

• verb

  The larger firm tried to muscle in on our biggest account.

• noun

  Regular training builds muscle over several months.

• verb

  She had to muscle through the crowd to reach the exit.

Where does muscle come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Muscle comes from the Latin musculus, which literally means 'little mouse', a diminutive of mus, 'mouse'. Roman observers thought that a flexing muscle, especially in the arm, rippled under the skin the way a small mouse might dart beneath a blanket, and so they named the tissue after the animal. The word reached English in the late 1300s through French, which kept the Latinate spelling with its silent 'c'. That silent 'c' is exactly the trap: the word sounds like 'mussel', and the two are in fact the same root, since the shellfish was also likened to a little mouse. English borrowers preserved the 'sc' cluster from Latin even though only the 's' is pronounced, which is why writers so often drop the 'c'.

How the word is built

• musc- (from Latin musculus, 'little mouse')
• -le (diminutive ending kept in the French spelling)