Miles Maɪl Work Area Nearest Distance Car Minutes

• a 20-mile drive to work
• an area of four square miles
• a mile-long procession
• the nearest bank is about half a mile down the road.

mile

1. a unit for measuring distance equal to 1 609 metres or 1 760 yards
• SEE ALSO Air Miles™
  https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/air-milestm
• a 20-mile drive to work
• an area of four square miles
• a mile-long procession
• The nearest bank is about half a mile down the road.
• The boys were left stranded two miles from home.
• He runs 10 miles every morning.
• We did about 30 miles a day on our cycling trip.
• The car must have been doing at least 100 miles an hour.
• My car does 35 miles to the gallon.
• My car gets 35 miles to the gallon.
• His thoughts were racing a mile a minute (= very fast).

Extra Examples

• She drives about 50 miles a day.
• Most parents travel miles across London to reach the club.
• They live 40 miles from the nearest supermarket.
• She crossed hundreds of miles of frozen tundra on a dog sled.
• Fell-runners who are out to win can cover the three miles in just over 15 minutes.
• Good runners can cover the three miles in just over 15 minutes.
• She was talking a mile a minute.
• The country's Red Sea coast stretches some 500 miles.
• The police stopped them doing 100 miles per hour on the motorway.
2. a large area or a long distance
• miles and miles of desert
• There isn't a house for miles around here.
• I'm not walking—it's miles away.
• It was a wonderful journey through miles and miles of lush green jungle.
• She's taller than you by a mile.
3. a race over one mile
• He ran the mile in less than four minutes.
• a four-minute mile
4. to be thinking deeply about something and not aware of what is happening around you
5. used to say that if you allow some people a small amount of freedom or power they will see you as weak and try to take a lot more
6. to make a special effort to achieve something, help somebody, etc.
• a willingness to go the extra mile to make a project work
7. in a place that is a long way from a town and surrounded only by a lot of open country, sea, etc.
• We broke down miles from anywhere.
8. there is no real difference between only just failing in something and failing in it badly because the result is still the same
9. to show that you are very frightened of doing something
10. to see or realize something very easily and quickly
• He's wearing a wig—you can see it a mile off.
• After twenty years in the police she could smell a liar a mile off.
11. to be very obvious or easy to notice
• It stood out a mile that she was lying.

Word Origin

• Old English mīl, based on Latin mil(l)ia, plural of mille ‘thousand’ (the original Roman unit of distance was mille passus ‘a thousand paces’).