mile (oh) and beak(1) (iou)

[Language: Old English; Origin: mil, from Latin milia passum 'thousands of paces']
written abbreviation m
a unit for measuring distance, equal to 1760 yards or about 1609 metres
::It's forty miles from here to the Polish border.
::an area 50 miles wide and 150 miles long
::We walked about half a mile .
::He was driving at 70 miles per hour .
the mile
a race that is a mile in length
::the first man to run the mile in under four minutes
miles
informal a very long distance
miles from
::We were miles from Home, and very tired.
miles away
::You can't go to Portsmouth, it's miles away.
for miles
::You can see for miles from here.
::They lived in a little cottage miles from anywhere (=a long way from the nearest town) .
go the extra mile
to try a little harder in order to achieve something, after you have already used a lot of effort
::The president expressed his determination to go the extra mile for peace.
stick out/stand out a mile
informal to be very easy to see or notice
::It sticks out a mile that you're new here.
can see/spot/tell sth a mile off
informal if you can see something a mile off, it is very easy to notice
::You can tell a mile off that he likes you.
be miles away
spoken to not be paying attention to anything that is happening around you
::'Kate!' 'Sorry, I was miles away!'
miles older/better/too difficult etc
BrE informal very much older, better, too difficult etc
-synonym loads loads
::The second Film's miles better.
by a mile
informal by a very large amount
::He was the best player on the pitch by a mile.
miles out
BrE informal a measurement, guess, or calculation that is miles out is completely wrong
join the mile high club
informal to have sex in a plane
-see also nautical mile , run a mile at run 1 (38)

beak(1) (iou)

beak noun1. [bi:k] ME.
[Old & mod. French bec from late Latin beccus, of Celtic origin.]
The horny projecting termination of the jaws of a bird, esp. when strong and hooked as in a bird of prey (cf. BILL noun2). ME.
b. The elongated head, proboscis, or sucker-mouth of certain insects, e.g. a weevil. M17.
c. The (freq. horny) extremities of the mandibles of some Other animals, e.g. a turtle or a squid. E19.
A sharp point or projection, a peak. LME.
b. Botany & Zoology. A projecting tip; e.g. that of a carpel in a cranesbill etc., or an umbo of a shell or valve. E19.
A human nose, esp. when hooked. joc. LME.
= beak-head (a) below. M16.
The tapered spout of a retort, still, etc. M17.
Comb.: beak-head (a) an (ornamented) projection at the prow of an ancient warship; (b) the space before the forecastle of a sailing ship (in men-of-war used as a latrine); (c) an ornament in Norman architecture resembling a head with a beak; beak-iron: see BICKERN; beak-sedge a sedge of the genus Rhynchospora, in which the persistent base of the style forms a beak to the fruit; esp. (more fully white beak-sedge) R. alba of wet heaths and moors in Europe and N. America.
beakful noun as much as can be held in a bird's beak M17.
beakless adjective L16.
beaklike adjective resembling (that of) a beak M19.
beaky adjective furnished with a beak, beaklike E18.

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