Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Mile
Mile
(mīl)
, Noun.
[AS.
mīl
, fr. L. millia
, milia
; pl. of mille
a thousand, i. e., milia passuum
a thousand paces. Cf. Mill
the tenth of a cent, Million
.] A certain measure of distance, being equivalent in England and the United States to 320 poles or rods, or 5,280 feet.
☞ The distance called a mile varies greatly in different countries. Its length in yards is, in Norway, 12,182; in Brunswick, 11,816; in Sweden, 11,660; in Hungary, 9,139; in Switzerland, 8,548; in Austria, 8,297; in Prussia, 8,238; in Poland, 8,100; in Italy, 2,025; in England and the United States, 1,760; in Spain, 1,552; in the Netherlands, 1,094.
Geographical mile
or Nautical mile
one sixtieth of a degree of a great circle of the earth, or 6080.27 feet.
– Mile run
. Same as
– Train mile
. See under Train
. Roman mile
, a thousand paces, equal to 1,614 yards English measure.
– Statute mile
, a mile conforming to statute, that is, in England and the United States, a mile of 5,280 feet, as distinguished from any other mile.
Webster 1828 Edition
Mile
MILE
,Noun.
Definition 2024
Mile
mile
mile
English
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, chapter 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).
- (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
Terms derived from mile
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Translations
measure of length
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Roman measure of length — see Roman mile
See also
References
Anagrams
Danish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /miːlə/, [ˈmiːlə]
Noun
mile c (singular definite milen, plural indefinite miler)
Inflection
Inflection of mile