miltvsmimeConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#43,788
“milt” frequency rank
#26,885
“mime” frequency rank
70673
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature milt mime
Definition The spleen, especially of an animal bred for food. A form of acting without words; pantomime.

Where the eye mixes milt and mime

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. milt (CVCC) and mime (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
milt
4 ch
mime

Look-alike desk: milt vs mime

A purely visual mix-up. milt (/mɪlt/) and mime (/maɪm/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70673, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

milt is recorded at frequency rank #43,788, classified as anoun, pronounced /mɪlt/. mime is at rank #26,885, tagged as anoun, pronounced /maɪm/.

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 70673, this pair ranks #49,595 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of milt vs mime

Shared letters: im. Private to "milt": lt. Private to "mime": e.

"milt" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mime" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • milt ← imlt · millt · miltt · mitl · mlit · mmilt
  • mime ← imme · miem · mimme · mmie · mmime

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "milt" and "mime" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/mɪlt/ versus /maɪm/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "milt" vs "mime" - which ranks higher?
"mime" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,885 in our English list, against #43,788 for "milt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "milt" and "mime" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "milt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mime" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,595 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "milt" and "mime" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mela vs milt". 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 #49,595 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