mil

Forms

mil m (plural miles)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mīlle (“thousand”); Old Spanish mil also had the form mill.^[2][3][1][4] It has the same form in Portuguese mil, Catalan mil, Asturian mil and Aragonese mil, and the same Latin word is French mille and Italian mille.^[4][5] The Latin plural mīlia gave Romanian mie and Old Italian miglia; in Old Catalan accounts mília was the usual form.^[5][6] Coromines starts the Catalan word from a Vulgar Latin *mīle.^[6] Basque mila was borrowed from Latin.^[5]

mīlle goes back to Proto-Italic *smīχeslī, and de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *sm-ih₂-ǵʰes-l-ih₂ (“having one thousand”), a compound of “one” and a word for “heap”.^[7][1] The closest cognates are Ancient Greek χίλιοι (khílioi, “thousand”) and the Indo-Iranian word for “thousand”, which lack the first element.^[7][1] The Roman mile was named mille passus (“a thousand paces”);^[2][8] Spanish milla was taken from its plural.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), where the hero vows „que faga ý cantar mill missas” “that I will have a thousand masses sung there”.^[9][10] The DEMel records the forms mill, mil, mille and milia in medieval texts.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias noted in 1611 that mil is often used for an endless number, as in the wish víviame vuestra merced mil años.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades recorded that use and the plant name mil en rama, now milenrama “yarrow”, and the joke mil y quinientas for lentils, because so many of them go into a bowl of stew.^[13] By 1843 the plural miles was in the dictionary as “thousands”, and Alemany gives the phrase a las mil y quinientas “far too late”.^[14][15]

In 16th-century accounts from the Americas mill is common in sums of maravedís, beside cuento for “million”.^[16] In Puerto Rico, Ecuador and Chile a mil means “very intensely”, and in Uruguay and Peru it describes a very busy person.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has mill missas.^[9]
• 1250–1279 – the prose of Alfonso X uses mil in measures.^[18]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin millenarius numerus.^[19]
• 1528 – the first record from the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[16]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses mil “a thousand” and mil vezes “a thousand times”.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records its use for an endless number.^[12]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records mil y quinientas “lentils”.^[13]
• 1843 – the plural miles “thousands” enters the Academy's dictionary.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. mille”.^[21]

Meanings

Numeral

1. One thousand: ten times a hundred: El billete costó mil pesos.^[3][1]
2. thousandth: in a series, the one numbered 1000: la fila mil.^[3]
3. Very many; a great, indefinite number: Tengo mil cosas que hacer hoy.^[3][22]

Noun

1. The number 1000, and the figure or figures that represent it.^[3]
2. (usually in the plural) A set of a thousand units, a thousand: Llegaron miles de turistas.^[3][1]

Word family

• millar
• millón
• milenrama
• milhojas

Related words

• milla
• milenario
• milésimo
• milenio
• Latin mīlle

Usage notes

As a numeral mil has no plural (dos mil, tres mil); the plural miles is used only for the noun “thousands”.^[3][22] Moliner notes that it is always stressed, also inside compounds such as diez mil.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mil
3. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. mil
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4342
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 680
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. mil
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. mil
10. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 301
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. mil
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1136
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 567
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 476
15. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1139
16. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. mil
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. mil
18. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. mil
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 380
20. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 173
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 659
22. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mil