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

That $5 billion project would be located just 40 nautical miles from the Malacca Strait, the vital East-to-West shipping corridor sitting between Malaysia and Indonesia. —Glenn Taylor, Sourcing Journal, 4 Sep. 2025

The joint patrol ultimately covered more than 6,000 nautical miles, or roughly 6,900 miles. —Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 2 Sep. 2025

The craft is designed for endurance, with a top speed of 11 knots and a range of 1,200 nautical miles (1,400 miles) at cruising speed. —Kapil Kajal, Interesting Engineering, 1 Sep. 2025

The ship was about 145 nautical miles west of Washington’s Cape Flattery at the time. —Nathan Diller, USA Today, 27 Aug. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1830, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for nautical mile

• bibliophile
• epicondyle
• geotextile
• nucleophile
• aisle
• bile
• chyle
• file
• guile
• heil
• isle
• kyle

Kids Definition

nautical mile

noun

: any of various units of distance used for sea and air navigation equal to about 6076 feet (1852 meters)