mvsmlWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: m is a character, ml is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“m” is a character and “ml” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#231
“m” frequency rank
#8,106
“ml” frequency rank
8337
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature m ml
Definition 13. Buchstabe des lateinischen Alphabets Milliliter

Letter map: m vs ml

Shared letters muted; letters that set m and ml apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

1 ch
m
2 ch
ml

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: m is acharacter and mlanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “m” sits inside “ml”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8337, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

m is recorded at frequency rank #231, classified as acharacter, pronounced [ɛm]. ml is at rank #8,106, tagged as anabbrev.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 8337, this pair ranks #1,984,691 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of m vs ml

Shared letters: m. Private to "m": -. Private to "ml": l.

"m" · 1 letters · shape C  ·  "ml" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "m" and "ml" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "m" is a character and "ml" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "m" or "ml"?
"m" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #231 in our German list, against #8,106 for "ml". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list