country mile

noun
/ˌkʌntɹi ˈmaɪl/

Etymology

From country + mile. So named due to the winding, twisting nature of country roads, a country mile appears to take much longer to travel than a mile in the city, where the roads are straighter. First use appears c. 1717, in the publications of M. Dutton.

  1. derived from mīlia
  2. derived from *mīliju
  3. inherited from mīl
  4. inherited from myle
  5. compounded as country mile — “country + mile

Definitions

  1. A long way, a great distance.

    • by a country mile
    • ’Twas long indeed, a country mile;
    • I liked to imagine that my father had been a pretty fair country ballplayer who didn't pay attention to his batting average but could hit the ball a country mile and run like the wind.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for country mile. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA