different between footrace vs marathon

English

Etymology

foot +? race

Noun

footrace (plural footraces)

1. A race run on foot.

Translations

Anagrams

• acre foot, acre-foot, footcare

English

Etymology

From French marathon, coined in 1894 by linguist Michel Bréal for the first modern time Olympic Games after Ancient Greek ??????? (Marath?n), a town northeast of Athens. Phidippides the Greek ran the distance from Marathon to Athens to deliver a message regarding the Battle of Marathon. The modern sport of marathon running is based on a run approximately the same distance. The toponym itself comes from ??????? (márathon, “fennel”) and refers to the prevalence of the plant in the area.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?mæ????n/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?mæ?????n/, /?m??????n/
• Hyphenation: mar?a?thon

Noun

marathon (plural marathons)

1. A 42.195 kilometre (26 mile 385 yard) road race.
2. (figuratively, by extension) Any extended or sustained activity.

   He had a cleaning marathon the night before his girlfriend came over.

Derived terms

• -athon
• marathoner
• half marathon
• ultramarathon

Translations

Verb

marathon (third-person singular simple present marathons, present participle marathoning, simple past and past participle marathoned)

1. To run a marathon.
2. (informal, transitive) To watch or read a large number of instalments of (a film, book, TV series, etc.) in one sitting.

   We're going to marathon Star Trek next weekend.

References

Dutch

Pronunciation

Noun

marathon m (plural marathons, diminutive marathonnetje n)

1. marathon

French

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ??????? (Marath?n)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ma.?a.t??/

Noun

marathon m (plural marathons)

1. marathon

Derived terms

• marathonien

Further reading

• “marathon” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).