Etymograph

English

mile

Mile comes from Old English mīl, from Proto-West Germanic *mīliju, from Latin mīlia, plural of mīlle ‘thousand (paces), Roman mile’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmīlle1‘thousand; a mile’
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*mīliju1‘mile’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150mīl1‘mile’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500myle1
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1892mile1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English mile
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1892, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate: A Novel: “Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and…”.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmīlleWiktionary, English mile‘thousand; a mile’
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*mīlijuWiktionary, English mile‘mile’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150mīlWiktionary, English mile‘mile’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500myleWiktionary, English mile
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1892mileWiktionary, English mile. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1892, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate: A Novel: “Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and…”

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with mile, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- ‘to spread’

  • expansion ← expānsiō ← expandō ← pandō ← *pandō
  • repeat ← repeten ← repeter ← repeter ← repetō
  • compete ← competer ← competere ← petō ← *péth₂eti
  • pen ← penne ← penne ← penne ← penna
  • expand ← espaundre ← expandō ← pandō ← *pandō
  • petition ← peticiun ← petitio ← petō ← *péth₂eti
  • patent ← patēns ← pateō ← *patēō ← *pandō
  • helicopter ← hélicoptère ← πτερόν ← *pterón ← *péth₂r̥
  • competitor ← compétiteur ← competō ← petō ← *péth₂eti
  • feather ← fethere ← feþer ← *feþru ← *feþrō
  • symptom ← sinthoma ← sinthoma ← symptoma ← σύμπτωμα
  • perpetual ← perpetuel ← perpetuel ← perpetuālis ← perpetuus

130 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

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.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “mile”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin mīlle / mile