micevsmilesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“mice” and “miles” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#6,166
“mice” frequency rank
#1,090
“miles” frequency rank
7256
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mice miles
Definition plural of mouse plural of mile

Where the eye mixes mice and miles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mice
5 ch
miles

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. mice (/maɪs/) and miles (/maɪlz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7256, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mice is recorded at frequency rank #6,166, classified as anoun, pronounced /maɪs/. miles is at rank #1,090, tagged as anoun, pronounced /maɪlz/.

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 7256, this pair ranks #507,906 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mice vs miles

Shared letters: eim. Private to "mice": c. Private to "miles": ls.

"mice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "miles" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • miceimce · mcie · micce · miec · mmice
  • milesimles · miels · miless · milles · milse · mlies · mmiles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mice" and "miles" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/maɪs/ versus /maɪlz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mice" or "miles"?
"miles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,090 in our English list, against #6,166 for "mice". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list