country mile
/ˌkʌntɹi ˈmaɪl/
"country-mile" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“country mile” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A long way, a great distance.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | country mile |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˌkʌntɹi ˈmaɪl/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “country mile” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
country mile is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˌkʌntɹi ˈmaɪl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A long way, a great distance.".
No misspelling variants are generated for country mile in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From country + mile. So named due to the winding, twisting nature of country roads, a country mile appears to take much longer to travel than a mile in the city, where the roads are straighter. First use appears c. 1717, in the publications of M. Dutton. The correct English form is country mile, spelled C-O-U-N-T-R-Y- -M-I-L-E.
Definition
- 1A long way, a great distance.
Etymology
From country + mile. So named due to the winding, twisting nature of country roads, a country mile appears to take much longer to travel than a mile in the city, where the roads are straighter. First use appears c. 1717, in the publications of M. Dutton.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
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Using “country mile”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-U-N-T-R-Y- -M-I-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˌkʌntɹi ˈmaɪl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.