mildlyvsmilleWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mildly is a adverb, mille is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mildly” is an adverb and “mille” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,532
“mildly” frequency rank
#37,096
“mille” frequency rank
53628
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mildly mille
Definition In a mild manner. Alternative spelling of mill.

Letter map: mildly vs mille

Shared letters muted; letters that set mildly and mille apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. mildly runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against mille's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
mildly
5 ch
mille

Role in the sentence - mildly and mille

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mildly is anadverb and milleanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53628, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mildly is recorded at frequency rank #16,532, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈmaɪldli/. mille is at rank #37,096, tagged as anoun.

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 53628, this pair ranks #147,481 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mildly vs mille

Shared letters: ilm. Private to "mildly": dy. Private to "mille": e.

"mildly" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "mille" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mildly ← imldly · midlly · milddly · mildlly · mildlyy · mildyl · milldly · milldy
  • mille ← imlle · milel · mlile · mmille

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "mildly" and "mille" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mildly" is an adverb and "mille" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mildly" or "mille"?
"mildly" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,532 in our English list, against #37,096 for "mille". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mildly" and "mille".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mildly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mille" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #147,481 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mildly" and "mille" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mie vs mille". 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 #147,481 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list