Which to use
“mile” and “mines” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,544
- “mile” frequency rank
- #5,340
- “mines” frequency rank
- 7884
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mile | mines |
|---|---|---|
| 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 mine |
Where the eye mixes mile and mines
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. mile (/maɪ̯l/) and mines (/maɪnz/) 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 7884, 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/. mines is at rank #5,340, tagged as anoun, pronounced /maɪnz/.
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 7884, this pair ranks #505,143 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of mile vs mines
Shared letters: eim. Private to "mile": l. Private to "mines": ns.
"mile" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "mines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC