militaryvsmiliterWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: military is a noun, militer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“military” is a noun and “militer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,406
“military” frequency rank
#28,252
“militer” frequency rank
69658
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature military militer
Definition Militaire Combattre.

Where the eye mixes military and militer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. military runs 8 letters (CVCVCVCV) against militer's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
military
7 ch
militer

Look-alike desk: military vs militer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: military is \ˈmɪl.ɪ.tɹɪ\ while militer is \mi.li.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69658, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

military is recorded at frequency rank #41,406, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈmɪl.ɪ.tɹɪ\. militer is at rank #28,252, tagged as averb, pronounced \mi.li.te\.

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 69658, this pair ranks #54,312 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of military vs militer

Shared letters: ilmrt. Private to "military": ay. Private to "militer": e.

"military" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV  ·  "militer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • military ← imlitary · miiltary · miliatry · militarry · militaryy · militayr · militray · milittary
  • militer ← imliter · miilter · milietr · militerr · militre · militter · milliter · miltier

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "military" and "militer" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "military" is a noun and "militer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "military" or "militer"?
"militer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,252 in our French list, against #41,406 for "military". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "military" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "militer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,312 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "military" and "militer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "militari vs military". 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 #54,312 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list