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

So far, crews have searched for over 71 hours and covered about 100,000 square nautical miles. —Kerry Breen, CBS News, 24 Apr. 2026

The first turbines from the Revolution Wind project were clearly visible from about 5 nautical miles away, and can be seen from farther away on clear days. —ABC News, 23 Apr. 2026

That system exceeds 200 nautical miles and can reach up to 500 nautical miles. —Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 23 Apr. 2026

At its narrowest point, the Strait of Malacca is two nautical miles, compared to 21 nautical miles for the Strait of Hormuz. —Lim Hui Jie, CNBC, 22 Apr. 2026

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)