Which to use
“mile” and “miles” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,544
- “mile” frequency rank
- #1,090
- “miles” frequency rank
- 3634
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mile | miles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | plural of mile |
Where the eye mixes mile and miles
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. mile (/maɪ̯l/) 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 extra letter(s) - “mile” sits inside “miles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mile is recorded at frequency rank #2,544, classified as anoun, pronounced /maɪ̯l/. 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 3634, this pair ranks #521,495 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of mile vs miles
Shared letters: eilm. Private to "mile": -. Private to "miles": s.
"mile" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "miles" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC