millervsmittlerTell them apart

Quick tell: miller is a noun, mittler is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“miller” is a noun and “mittler” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,956
“miller” frequency rank
#27,851
“mittler” frequency rank
34807
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature miller mittler
Definition der Müller Nominativ Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs mittel

Where the eye mixes miller and mittler

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. miller runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against mittler's 7 (CVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
miller
7 ch
mittler

Why the eye confuses miller with mittler

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: miller is [ˈmɪləʳ] while mittler is [ˈmɪtlɐ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34807, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

miller is recorded at frequency rank #6,956, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈmɪləʳ]. mittler is at rank #27,851, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈmɪtlɐ].

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 34807, this pair ranks #1,654,817 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of miller vs mittler

Shared letters: eilmr. Private to "miller": -. Private to "mittler": t.

"miller" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mittler" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • miller ← imller · milelr · miler · millerr · millre · mliler · mmiller
  • mittler ← imttler · mitler · mitlter · mittelr · mittlerr · mittller · mittlre · mmittler

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "miller" and "mittler" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "miller" is a noun and "mittler" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "miller" or "mittler" show up more?
"miller" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,956 in our German list, against #27,851 for "mittler". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "miller" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mittler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,654,817 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "miller" and "mittler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mittler vs mittlerem". 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 #1,654,817 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