millvsmlsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“mill” and “mls” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#19,602
“mill” frequency rank
#24,677
“mls” frequency rank
44279
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mill mls
Definition Moulin. Friandise, gourmandise, chose bonne à manger.

Where the eye mixes mill and mls

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
mill
3 ch
mls

Look-alike desk: mill vs mls

A purely visual mix-up. mill (\mɪl\) and mls (\ml̩s\) 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 44279, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mill is recorded at frequency rank #19,602, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɪl\. mls is at rank #24,677, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ml̩s\.

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 44279, this pair ranks #211,676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mill vs mls

Shared letters: lm. Private to "mill": i. Private to "mls": s.

"mill" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "mls" · 3 letters · shape CCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • millimll · mlil · mmill

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mill" for "mls" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\mɪl\ versus \ml̩s\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "mill" or "mls"?
"mill" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,602 in our French list, against #24,677 for "mls". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mls" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #211,676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mill" and "mls" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mls vs MWh". 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 #211,676 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