militaryvstheirConfusable pair

Quick tell: military is a adjective, their is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“military” is an adjective and “their” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,699
“military” frequency rank
#11,131
“their” frequency rank
40830
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature military their
Definition militärisch ihr

Letter map: military vs their

Shared letters muted; letters that set military and their apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. military runs 8 letters (CVCVCVCV) against their's 5 (CCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
military
5 ch
their

Role in the sentence - military and their

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: military is anadjective and theirapronoun. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40830, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

military is recorded at frequency rank #29,699, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. their is at rank #11,131, tagged as apron, pronounced […].

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 40830, this pair ranks #1,497,073 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of military vs their

Shared letters: irt. Private to "military": almy. Private to "their": eh.

"military" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV  ·  "their" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • militaryimlitary · miiltary · miliatry · militarry · militaryy · militayr · militray · milittary
  • theirhteir · tehir · theirr · theri · thheir · thier · ttheir

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "military" and "their" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "military" is an adjective and "their" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "military" or "their" show up more?
"their" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,131 in our German list, against #29,699 for "military". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "military" vs "their" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "military" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "their" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,497,073 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "military" and "their" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "military 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 #1,497,073 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