nautical mile
noun
: any of various units of distance used for sea and air navigation based on the length of a minute of arc of a great circle of the earth and differing because the earth is not a perfect sphere: such as
a
: a British unit equal to 6080 feet (1853.2 meters)
b
: an international unit equal to exactly 1852 meters (6076.115 feet or 1.15 statute miles) used officially in the U.S. since July 1, 1954
Examples of nautical mile in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Search and rescue efforts spanned 14,000 square nautical miles of rough seas, where waves at times reached as high as 10 feet, the Coast Guard said.
—
Emily Mae Czachor, CBS News, 7 Apr. 2026
At the time of the call, the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity by its crew, was more than 200,000 nautical miles from Earth.
—Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Scientific American, 7 Apr. 2026
The Sunday incident comes around a week after the Italian coast guard found 19 bodies and rescued 58 people when intercepting a dinghy filled with migrants about 80 nautical miles from Lampedusa.
—ABC News, 7 Apr. 2026
The country is an island in the Persian Gulf that sits roughly 124 nautical miles away from the coast of Iran, which makes Bahrain well within range of Iranian drone and missile strikes.
—Steve Walsh, NPR, 3 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for nautical mile
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Emily Mae Czachor, CBS News, 7 Apr. 2026
At the time of the call, the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity by its crew, was more than 200,000 nautical miles from Earth.
—Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Scientific American, 7 Apr. 2026
The Sunday incident comes around a week after the Italian coast guard found 19 bodies and rescued 58 people when intercepting a dinghy filled with migrants about 80 nautical miles from Lampedusa.
—ABC News, 7 Apr. 2026
The country is an island in the Persian Gulf that sits roughly 124 nautical miles away from the coast of Iran, which makes Bahrain well within range of Iranian drone and missile strikes.
—Steve Walsh, NPR, 3 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for nautical mile
Cite this Entry
“Nautical mile.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nautical%20mile. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
