Milestone

How to spell milestone

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce milestone

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does milestone mean?

1. nounA significant stage or turning point in the progress of something.
2. nounA stone set beside a road showing the distance in miles to a place.

Milestone in a sentence

• Reaching one million customers was a major milestone for the company.

• An old milestone by the lane still showed the distance to the town.

• The team set a milestone for completing the first draft by March.

• The walkers paused beside a weathered milestone to check the route.

Where does milestone come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a transparent compound of two very old native English elements: 'mile', which descends from the Old English mil, itself borrowed from the Latin mille passuum meaning 'a thousand paces', and 'stone', from the Old English stan, the ordinary word for a piece of rock. Literally, then, a milestone was a stone set beside a road to mark each mile of distance, a practice the Romans pioneered and the British later revived along their turnpikes. By the early 1700s English writers were already using the word figuratively for any notable stage or turning point reached along the course of a life or project. The spelling is mercifully regular, since both parts survive unchanged from their Old English forms, so the only thing to remember is that the single 'l' of 'mile' joins directly to 'stone' with no doubling and no silent gap.

How the word is built

• mile (a unit of distance)
• stone (a marker of rock)