mile
English
Etymology
From Middle English myle, mile, from Old English mīl, from Proto-Germanic *mīlijō (“mile”), a borrowing of Latin mīlia, mīllia, plural of mīle, mīlle (“mile”) (literally ‘thousand’ but used as a short form of mīlle passūs (“a thousand paces”)). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Miele (“mile”), Dutch mijl (“mile”), German Meile (“mile”).
Noun
mile (plural miles)
- 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.
- Any of several customary units of length derived from the 1593 English statute mile of 8 furlongs, equivalent to 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards of various precise values.
- Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging. No omnibus, cab, or conveyance ever built could contain a young man in such a rage. His mother lived at Pembridge Square, which is four good measured miles from Lincoln's Inn.
- 1922, Michael Arlen, “3/19/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days:
- Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house ; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something ; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall.
- 2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52:
- From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. […] But viewed from high up in one of the growing number of skyscrapers in Sri Lanka’s capital, it is clear that something extraordinary is happening: China is creating a shipping hub just 200 miles from India’s southern tip.
- Any of many customary units of length derived from the Roman mile (mille passus) of 8 stades or 5,000 Roman feet.
- Any of many customary units of length from other measurement systems of roughly similar values, as the Chinese (里) or Arabic mile (al-mīl).
- (travel) An airline mile in a frequent flier program.
- (informal) Any similarly large distance.
- The shot missed by a mile.
- (slang) A race of 1 mile's length; a race of around 1 mile's length (usually 1500 or 1600 meters)
- The runners competed in the mile.
- (slang) One mile per hour, as a measure of speed.
- five miles over the speed limit
Derived terms
- air mile
- Arab mile, Arabic mile, Arabian mile
- Chinese mile
- country mile
- Curry Mile
- geographic mile, geographical mile
- Imperial mile
- in for an inch, in for a mile
- international mile
- Irish mile
- Italian mile
- land mile
- metric mile
- Mile End
- milestone
- nautical mile
- Roman mile
- Scots mile, Scottish mile
- sea mile
- square mile, Square Mile
- statute mile
- survey mile
- ton mile
- train mile
Translations
measure of length
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Roman measure of length — see Roman mile
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Danish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /miːlə/, [ˈmiːlə]
- Rhymes: -ajl
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /mil/, /majl/
Audio (file)
Related terms
Further reading
- “mile” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Middle English
Etymology 1
From Old English mīl (“millet”) and Latin milium (“millet”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /miːl/, /mil/
Descendants
- English: mile (obsolete)
References
- “mī̆le (n.(2))” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-08.
Etymology 2
From Old English mīl (“mile”).
Old French
Alternative forms
Polish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈmʲi.lɛ/
Related terms
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