miss by a mile

Idioms and Phrases

Fall short, fail by a considerable amount, as in Your guess as to the winner missed by a mile . This expression employs miss in the sense of “fail to hit something aimed at,” a usage dating from the late 1400s, and by a mile for a great distance or interval, so used since Shakespeare's day.

Related Words

• err
• misconstrue
• misinterpret
• misjudge
• misread
• misunderstand
• overestimate
• overrate
• overvalue
• underestimate
• undervalue