Word Confusion: Muscle versus Mussel

Plural for the noun: muscles
Gerund: muscling

Third person present verb: muscles
Past tense or past participle: muscled
Present participle: muscling

Plural: mussels

• A band or bundle of tissue when well developed or prominently visible under the skin

Physical power

• Strength
• [Informal] A person or people exhibiting physical power or strength
• Power or influence, especially in a commercial or political context

Verb, intransitive:
[Informal; often followed by in, into, on, etc.] To make one’s way by force or fraud

Verb, transitive:
[Chiefly North American; informal; adverbial] Move (an object) in a particular direction by using one’s physical strength

• Coerce by violence or by economic or political pressure

• A marine bivalve that uses byssus threads to anchor to a firm surface (family Mytilidae, order Mytiloidea), including the edible mussel (Mytilus edulis)
• A freshwater bivalve that typically lies on the bed of a river, some species forming small pearls (family Unionidae, order Unionoida)

There’s a sheet of muscle between one’s abdomen and chest.

Peter loves showing off his muscles to prove how strong he is.

Muscles are formed of bands, sheets, or columns of elongated cells (or fibers) containing interlocking parallel arrays of the proteins actin and myosin.

He had muscle but no brains.

They had an ex-marine of enormous proportions who’d been brought along as muscle.

He had enough muscle and resources to hold his position on the council.

Marie was fascinated by the muscles rippling across John’s chest.

Verb, intransitive:
She muscled into the conversation.

The big firms have all muscled in.

The large firms have muscled in on all the important contracts.

Verb, transitive:
They were muscling baggage into the hold of the plane.

He was a young kid, and now they were going to muscle him out of there.

His strength allows him to muscle shots even when he doesn’t put the bat’s sweet spot on the ball.

He was eventually muscled out of business.

The government also seem to have muscled out the UN in the reconstruction program.

I was driving to work one morning recently when a gentleman in a big SUV barreled down on me from a side street and muscled his way into the line of morning traffic.

Fresh mussels, also known as poor man’s oysters for their cheap abundance, are marvelous at this time of year.

Add the vegetables, watercress, and shelled mussels and clams to this, season to taste, and serve.

The shop also has a wide range of seafood including tiger prawns, mussels, sea bream, and breaded crab claws.

Shell the mussels, watching out for any reluctant beards, and discard any that aren’t open.

Think of mollusks and chances are it is shellfish such as limpets, whelks, scallops, and mussels that spring to mind.

Extract the meat from most of the mussels and discard the shells.

We ate fish soup, mussels, oysters, skate in brown butter, and my aunt’s tomato salad.

Remove the heads and shells from the prawns and shell the mussels.

Four or five minutes later, add the clams, then the mussels and prawns, and stir in the saffron strands.