mile

Meaning

Noun

• 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.
• Any of many customary units of length derived from the Roman mile (mille passus) of 8 stades or 5,000 Roman feet.
• The Scandinavian mile: a unit of length precisely equal to 10 kilometers defined in 1889.
• Any of many customary units of length from other measurement systems of roughly similar values, as the Chinese (里) or Arabic mile (al-mīl).
• An airline mile in a frequent flyer program.
• Any similarly large distance.
• A race of 1 mile's length; a race of around 1 mile's length (usually 1500 or 1600 meters)
• One mile per hour, as a measure of speed.

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 (literally ‘thousand’ but used as a short form of mīlle passūs).