mile
noun
Simple meaning
Any of several customary units of length derived from the 1593 English statute mile of 8 furlongs.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mylIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmaɪl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
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.
A footrace extending one mile
“He holds the record in the mile.”
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 mile or Arabic mile.
A transliteration of the Macedonian male given name Миле (Mile)
informal
Any similarly large distance.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, mile is a specialist word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Careful and exacting
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Nearby words
- statute mile , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use mile
- “He holds the record in the mile.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
A unit of length corresponding approximately to one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian. By international….
A unit of length equal to 1760 yards.
A british unit of length equivalent to 1,853.18 meters (6,082 feet).
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A braggart soldier (a stock figure in comedy).
The distance traveled in a vehicle powered by one gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel.
The ratio of the distance traveled (in miles) to the time spent traveling (in hours).
A unit of length equal to 1,760 yards or 5,280 feet.
A former British unit of length equivalent to 6,080 feet (1,853.184 meters).
A unit of length equal to half of 1 mile.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Distance measured in miles.
The ratio of the number of miles traveled to the number of gallons of gasoline burned.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.