cable's length
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of cable's length
First recorded in 1545–55
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
She was now within half a cable's length of the Pelikan, which to prevent herself being in collision was obliged to veer out her cable.
From Rounding up the Raider A Naval Story of the Great War by Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)
Steering straight for the Detroit, a vessel a fourth larger than his own, he gave orders to have the schooners that lagged behind close up within half cable's length.
From The Second War with England, Vol. 1 of 2 by Headley, Joel Tyler
The two whalers pulled almost neck and neck at half a dozen boats' lengths apart, while at a good cable's length astern, and quite invisible to the rest, followed the gigs.
From The Fight for Constantinople A Story of the Gallipoli Peninsula by Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)
About a cable's length from us lay a large European steamship, flying the yellow flag at the fore.
From Equatorial America Descriptive of a Visit to St. Thomas, Martinique, Barbadoes, and the Principal Capitals of South America by Ballou, Maturin Murray
Hardly a cable's length away was anchored a stout corvette of twenty-eight guns, whose officers and men, up to that moment, had been observing the new arrival quite listlessly.
From The Noank's Log A Privateer of the Revolution by Stoddard, W. O.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
