miltvsmiteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#43,788
“milt” frequency rank
#26,169
“mite” frequency rank
69957
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature milt mite
Definition The spleen, especially of an animal bred for food. Any of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acari (syn. Acarina).

Where the eye mixes milt and mite

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

4 ch
milt
4 ch
mite

Visual trap between milt and mite

A purely visual mix-up. milt (/mɪlt/) and mite (/maɪt/) 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 69957, 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/. mite is at rank #26,169, tagged as anoun, pronounced /maɪt/.

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 69957, this pair ranks #52,469 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of milt vs mite

Shared letters: imt. Private to "milt": l. Private to "mite": e.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • miltimlt · millt · miltt · mitl · mlit · mmilt
  • miteimte · miet · mitte · mmite · mtie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "milt" for "mite" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/mɪlt/ versus /maɪt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "milt" or "mite" show up more?
"mite" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,169 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.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "milt" and "mite" 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 "mite" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #52,469 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "milt" and "mite" 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 #52,469 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