maluvsmilkTell them apart

Quick tell: malu is a adverb, milk is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“malu” is an adverb and “milk” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,130
“malu” frequency rank
#34,262
“milk” frequency rank
80392
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature malu milk
Definition erst, erst einmal 2. Person Singular Präsens Imperativ Aktiv des Verbs melken

Letter map: malu vs milk

Shared letters muted; letters that set malu and milk apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. malu (CVCV) and milk (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
malu
4 ch
milk

Part-of-speech tell for malu / milk

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: malu is anadverb and milkaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80392, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

malu is recorded at frequency rank #46,130, classified as anadv, pronounced […]. milk is at rank #34,262, tagged as averb, pronounced [mɪlk].

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 80392, this pair ranks #196,546 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of malu vs milk

Shared letters: lm. Private to "malu": au. Private to "milk": ik.

"malu" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "milk" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • malu ← amlu · mallu · mlau · mmalu
  • milk ← imlk · mikl · milkk · millk · mlik · mmilk

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "malu" for "milk" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "malu" is an adverb and "milk" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "malu" or "milk"?
"milk" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,262 in our German list, against #46,130 for "malu". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "malu" and "milk".

  • Full dictionary entry for "malu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "milk" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #196,546 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "malu" and "milk" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malu vs puzzles". 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 #196,546 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