your mileage may vary
/jɚ ˈmaɪlədʒ meɪ ˈvɛəɹi/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.54 in modern English
35
Scrabble Score
18
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
phrase
It may work differently in your situation, or be different in your experience.
Canadian usage; American usage
Example Sentences
- "The battery lasts a day in my phone, but your mileage may vary."
- "When that definition is executed, the metadata for the temporary table is put into your schema (most likely—your mileage may vary), but no space is allocated to hold data."
- "In other words, your mileage may vary and my disk-size figures are just estimates provided for your convenience."
- "We pause here to emphasize that with animals, there are no absolutes. […] We like to say that with any given wolf or dog, "your mileage may vary.""
- "Mallory Ortberg: […] The advice game is the ultimate your-mileage-may-vary exercise—do you have a feeling for when someone is looking for (or needs) a gentle smack to return them to their senses, a bit of empathy, a dose of humor? It’s a tricky balance, I think, between writing something entertaining for your many readers and trying to be genuinely helpful to the original writer."
- "I think that red dress looks really good on you, but your mileage may vary, of course."
Etymology
The United States Environmental Protection Agency requires all new vehicles to undergo a set of standard emissions tests which simulate city and highway driving. Part of the test measures estimated city and highway gas (petrol) mileage estimates. Since no test can exactly simulate all driving habits and conditions, the actual gas mileage of each vehicle will vary. As a result, when these estimated mileage claims from automobile manufacturers appear in advertisements, they are almost always accompanied with the standard disclaimer “your mileage may vary”.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /jɚ ˈmaɪlədʒ meɪ ˈvɛəɹi/
- British English: /jə ˈmaɪlədʒ meɪ ˈvɛəɹi/