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Furlong Has Old English Roots
Furlong is an English original that can be traced back to Old English furlang, a combination of the noun furh (“furrow”) and the adjective lang (“long”). Though now standardized as a length of 220 yards (or 1/8th of a mile), the furlong was originally defined less precisely as the length of a furrow—a trench in the earth made by a plow—in a cultivated field. This length was equal to the long side of an acre—an area originally defined as the amount of arable land that could be plowed by a yoke of oxen in a day, but later standardized as an area measuring 220 yards (one furlong) by 22 yards, and now defined as any area measuring 4,840 square yards. In contemporary usage, furlong is often encountered in references to horse racing.
Examples of furlong in a Sentence
Beth Harris, Chicago Tribune, 4 May 2024
In the last furlong, and most visibly in the last few strides the leading four athletes took in that last furlong, not a horse among them could provide a surge to stop Senor Buscador.
—Guy Martin, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for furlong 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'furlong.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Furlong.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/furlong. Accessed 29 May. 2024.
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furlong
noun
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