Which to use
“mail” and “mile” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,952
- “mail” frequency rank
- #2,544
- “mile” frequency rank
- 4496
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mile | |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A bag or wallet. | The international mile: a unit of length precisely equal to 1.609344 kilometers established by treaty among Anglophone nations in 1959, divided into 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards. |
Where the eye mixes mail and mile
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. mail (/meɪl/) and mile (/maɪ̯l/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4496, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mail is recorded at frequency rank #1,952, classified as anoun, pronounced /meɪl/. mile is at rank #2,544, tagged as anoun, pronounced /maɪ̯l/.
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 4496, this pair ranks #518,729 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of mail vs mile
Shared letters: ilm. Private to "mail": a. Private to "mile": e.
"mail" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "mile" · 4 letters · shape CVCV