mile
noun
a unit of length used in navigation; equivalent to the distance spanned by one minute of arc in latitude; 1,852 meters
a former British unit of length once used in navigation; equivalent to 1828.8 meters (6000 feet)
a British unit of length equivalent to 1,853.18 meters (6,082 feet)
an ancient Roman unit of length equivalent to 1620 yards
a Swedish unit of length equivalent to 10 km
Origin
From Middle English myle, mile, from Old English mīl, from Proto-West Germanic *mīliju, 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”)).
Phrases
- a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
- a mile wide and an inch deep
- a miss is as good as a mile
- air mile
- Arab mile
- Arabian mile
- Arabic mile
- available seat-mile
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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.