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Furlong Has Old English Roots
Furlong is an English original that can be traced back to Old English furlang, a combination of the noun furh (“furrow”) and the adjective lang (“long”). Though now standardized as a length of 220 yards (or 1/8th of a mile), the furlong was originally defined less precisely as the length of a furrow—a trench in the earth made by a plow—in a cultivated field. This length was equal to the long side of an acre—an area originally defined as the amount of arable land that could be plowed by a yoke of oxen in a day, but later standardized as an area measuring 220 yards (one furlong) by 22 yards, and now defined as any area measuring 4,840 square yards. In contemporary usage, furlong is often encountered in references to horse racing.
Examples of furlong in a Sentence
Jay Posner, Los Angeles Times, 8 Mar. 2026
Touchdown Arkansas, second in a Feb. 6 prep race, went six furlongs in 1:10.31 under 119 pounds and paid $10, $6 and $4.
—Arkansas Online, 22 Feb. 2026
Ridden by William Antongeorgi III, Grand Slam Smile went off as the 3-5 favorite in the field of seven for the seven-furlong race on the main track.
—Bill Center, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Nov. 2025
The 1960s space race with the Soviet Union was a bracing global competition that energized both nations’ space programs—with the U.S. starting well behind, but eventually winning by many furlongs.
—Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 24 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for furlong
Cite this Entry
“Furlong.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/furlong. Accessed 24 Mar. 2026.
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furlong
noun
