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

Close the channel and power stations from Houston to Hong Kong scramble for fuel while tanker queues lengthen by thousands of nautical miles. —Guney Yildiz, Forbes.com, 20 June 2025

The power lines that the plane struck were about 90 feet above the ground and about 1.8 nautical miles away from the runway. —Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times, 19 June 2025

Without refueling, its range is about 6,000 nautical miles. —Ellen Uchimiya, CBS News, 19 June 2025

In April 2018, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel and a Royal Canadian Navy ship patrolling international waters intercepted a go-fast smuggling boat about 430 nautical miles south of the Mexico-Guatemala border, according to a criminal complaint. —Alex Riggins, Mercury News, 17 June 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)