Other forms: lengths
The length of something is how long it is, from one end to the other. You run the tape down the shelf, write the number on the back of your hand, and drive to the shop for the wood.
Length measures time as well as distance — the length of the film, the length of a prison sentence. A length of something is a cut piece of it: a length of rope, a length of pipe, a length of blue cloth. In a swimming pool a length is one journey from wall to wall, and people count them out loud. Two phrases take it further: at length means for a long time, and going to great lengths means doing far more than anyone asked. Say two metres in length, and keep long for the question — how long is it, never how length.
1nounlengthHow long something is from end to end.~71%
“Measure the length of the table before you buy the cloth.”
2noundurationHow long something lasts.~25%
“Nobody warned us about the length of the meeting.”
synonyms: duration
3nouncutA piece cut from something long.~2%
“He cut a length of rope and tied the gate shut.”
4nounswimOne swim from one end of a pool to the other.~2%
“She swims forty lengths before work.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 168 sentences found in the wild and placed 151 of them on a sense (17 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
length is a measurement.
Old English lengþ is long with a -th stuck on the end, the same small ending that turns strong into strength and warm into warmth. The vowel bends as it goes — long, leng, length — but nothing else happens. It is an adjective made into the measurement of itself.
Proto-Germanic
*langiþō
Proto-West Germanic
*langiþu
Old English
lengþ
Middle English
lengthe
English, today
length
From Middle English lengthe, from Old English lengþ, lengþu, from Proto-West Germanic langiþu, from Proto-Germanic langiþō, equivalent to long + th. Cognate with Scots lenth, lainth (“length”), stq Loangte (“length”), West Frisian lingte, langte (“length”), Dutch lengte (“length”), German Low German Längde, Längd, Längte, Längt (“length”), Danish længde (“length”), Swedish längd (“length”), Icelandic lengd (“length”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA