makevsmileWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: make is a verb, mile is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“make” is a verb and “mile” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#87
“make” frequency rank
#2,544
“mile” frequency rank
2631
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature make mile
Definition To create. 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 make and mile

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
make
4 ch
mile

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: make is /meɪk/ while mile is /maɪ̯l/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2631, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

make is recorded at frequency rank #87, classified as averb, pronounced /meɪk/. 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 2631, this pair ranks #524,469 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of make vs mile

Shared letters: em. Private to "make": ak. Private to "mile": il.

"make" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "mile" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • makeamke · maek · makke · mkae · mmake
  • mileimle · miel · mlie · mmile

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "make" and "mile" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "make" is a verb and "mile" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "make" or "mile"?
"make" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #87 in our English list, against #2,544 for "mile". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list