quarter mile
32
2.5
- noun
- /ˈkwɔrtər maɪl/
:
cuarto de milla
- We had come well over a quarter mile already, and there was no end in sight.
- quarter mile away
- walk the quarter mile
- quarter mile long
I'm literally, I drive home, I get my shoes on and I run a quarter mile, come home crying.
- I'm literally, I drive home, I get my shoes on and I run a quarter mile, come home crying.
- So he had to literally break one minute for the quarter mile.
- So let's do that quarter mile straight line one more time, but this time next to me is going to be a very, very fast car.
- And his best friend, Johnny Johnson, OK, was coming around the back stretch, might have been the quarter mile coming on the final straightaway.
- And it would be days of sifting through this this property, this wooded area quarter mile from where Casey Anthony lived with her parents.
Examples
-
The mail is waiting in the box out by the road, a quarter-mile away.
Fiction book (1996) -
We're a quarter mile from land.
-
- It says we're just a quarter mile away.
-
You run a quarter mile.
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We'll be lucky to make it another quarter mile.
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Just stay within a quarter mile.
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It's a bar about a quarter mile east on Fifth and Main.
-
- Looks like the crash is located a quarter mile south-east.
-
Then we walked out to the dig site, which was located about a quarter mile from Harper Hall.
Fiction book (1998) -
The store is located just a quarter mile from the nearest intersection.
Synonyms
A length equal to a quarter of a mile used in races
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'quarter' (one fourth) combined with 'mile' (a unit of distance) yields a straightforward numeric fraction of that unit. This numeric + unit pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows regular combinatory rules, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
The noun quarter mile comes from dividing a mile into four parts: a quarter is 'one-fourth' of a mile. That simple picture — a short part of a mile, about 440 yards or about 400 metres — explains why the term means a short distance often used in races and for nearby places today.