distance

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The amount of space between two places or points.

   The distance from New York to Chicago is about 700 miles.

2. 2
   noun

   A faraway place or point that you can see.

   I could see the mountains in the distance.

3. 3
   noun

   A feeling of being emotionally separate or unfriendly.

   There was a growing distance between the two old friends.

4. 4
   verb

   To keep yourself separate or apart from someone or something.

   The company tried to distance itself from the scandal.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Distance ultimately comes from Latin distare, “to stand apart,” which developed senses including separation, an intervening space, and difference. Its earliest English meanings concerned discord, debate, or a quarrel; the physical sense “space between two objects” arose by late Middle English, and the idea of emotional or social remoteness appeared by the 17th century.

From Middle English distance, distaunce, destance (“disagreement, dispute; discrimination; armed conflict; hostility; trouble; space between two points; time interval”), from Anglo-Norman distance, distaunce, destance, Middle French distance, and Old French destance, destaunce, distaunce (“debate; difference, distinction; discord, quarrel; dispute; space between two points; time interval”) (modern French distance), and directly from their etymon Latin distantia (“difference, diversity; distance, remoteness; space between two points”) (whence also Late Latin distantia (“disagreement; discrepanc…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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