maltvsmlWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#13,197
“malt” frequency rank
#8,106
“ml” frequency rank
21303
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malt ml
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens des Verbs malen Milliliter

Letter map: malt vs ml

Shared letters muted; letters that set malt and ml apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
malt
2 ch
ml

Part-of-speech tell for malt / ml

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malt is averb and mlanabbrev. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21303, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malt is recorded at frequency rank #13,197, classified as averb, pronounced [maːlt]. 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 21303, this pair ranks #1,887,854 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of malt vs ml

Shared letters: lm. Private to "malt": at. Private to "ml": -.

"malt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "ml" · 2 letters · shape CC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maltamlt · mallt · maltt · matl · mlat · mmalt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "malt" for "ml" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malt" is a verb and "ml" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "malt" or "ml" show up more?
"ml" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,106 in our German list, against #13,197 for "malt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "malt" 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 #1,887,854 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malt" and "ml" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mals vs malt". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,887,854 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list