Mai vs ml, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#586
“Mai” frequency rank: #8,106
“ml” frequency rank: 8692
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	Mai	ml
Definition	der fünfte Monat im Jahr	Milliliter

Letter map: Mai vs ml

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

3 ch

Mai

2 ch

Grammar separator: Mai vs ml

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Mai is anoun and mlanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8692, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Mai is recorded at frequency rank #586, classified as anoun, pronounced [maɪ̯]. 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 8692, this pair ranks #1,983,254 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Mai vs ml

Shared letters: m. Private to "Mai": ai. Private to "ml": l.

"Mai" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "ml" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Mai" for "ml" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Mai" is a noun and "ml" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary German text, does "Mai" or "ml" show up more?

"Mai" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #586 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.

After this comparison

You've compared "Mai" and "ml". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "Mai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ml" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,983,254 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"Mai" and "ml" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mals vs ml". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,983,254 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.