▪ I. ˈmilestone, n.
[f. mile n.1 + stone.]
1. A pillar set up on a highway or other road or course to mark the miles.
| a 1746 Holdsworth Virgil (1768) 483 The first mile-stone on the Via Appia. 1774 Beverley & Hessle Road Act ii. 17 Roads to be measured and mile stones erected. 1858 Lytton What will he do i. iii, The cobbler seated himself on a lonely milestone. |
| fig. 1847 Emerson Repr. Men, Uses Gt. Men Wks. (Bohn) I. 288 For a time, our teachers serve us personally, as metres or milestones of progress. 1897 N. & Q. 8th Ser. XII. 154/2 Ever since I have passed my eightieth milestone. |
2. slang. (See quot.)
| 1812 J. H. Vaux Flash Dict., Milestone, a country booby. |
3. Naut. slang. (See quots.)
| 1946 J. Irving Royal Navalese 116 Milestones, the heavy, green seas which break inboard in bad weather. 1962 Granville Dict. Sailors' Slang 77/1 Milestones refer to the homeward trip, for, like milestones on country roads they seem to make the journey longer and harder, and one's progress slower in consequence. |
▪ II. milestone, v.
[f. the n.]
trans. Used fig., to mark (stages) as if by milestones.
| 1902 J. H. M. Abbott Tommy Cornstalk 157 And the road was mile-stoned by the parched hides and whitened bones of horses, mules, and oxen. a 1910 ‘Mark Twain’ Autobiogr. (1924) I. 299 You could look back over that speech and you'd find it dimly milestoned along with those commas. 1922 Chamber's Jrnl. Dec. 861/1 The Overland is mile-stoned with our bones. 1973 J. Cleary Ransom iii. 98 Malone's life was milestoned by friends he had never made. 1973 J. Wainwright High-Class Kill 149 The book..will make passing reference to these things—as a means, perhaps, of milestoning his climb to the rank of chief constable. |