mil
/mɪl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.74 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An angular mil, a unit of angular measurement equal to ¹⁄₆₄₀₀ of a complete circle. At 1000 metres one mil subtends about one metre (0.98 m). Also ¹⁄₆₀₀₀ and ¹⁄₆₃₀₀ are used in other countries.
noun
A unit of measurement equal to ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ of an inch (25.4 µm), usually used for thin objects, such as sheets of plastic.
noun
A former subdivision (¹⁄₁₀₀₀) of the Maltese lira.
Example Sentences
- "For this task, I prefer the plastic sheeting that is 10 mils thick."
- "If made of plastic, is minimum of at least 2.25 mils (thousandths of an inch) thick."
- "We told her to give her daughter ten mils of cough syrup and to call us back if the cough gets worse."
- "For this task, I prefer the plastic bars that are 10 mils in diameter."
- "Party like it's 2024, hear a knocking at my door / It's the police let them in, bust a 9 mil through their skin"
- "A dot in a mil-dot reticle represents one mil, which corresponds to a few inches at 100 yards."
Etymology
Ultimately from Latin millesimum. The clippings come by way of the clipped words (e.g., millilitre, millimetre, milliradian). The metric units come about via clipping of translingual milli- (“SI prefix”)
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: millesimum, milli-