distance [ME] The distant origin of distance lies in Latin distare ‘to stand apart’, which developed into ‘separation, opening between, difference’. The apartness may be physical, as in the distance between two places, or intellectual. The earliest senses of distance in English are ‘discord, debate’, and ‘a disagreement, a quarrel’ However, the sense ‘space between two objects’ had developed by Late Middle English, and the sense ‘remote in behaviour, stand-offish’ by the 17th century. The expression to go the distance [M20th], ‘to last for a long time’, has its roots in the world of boxing, although it is also used in other sports. A boxer who ‘goes the distance’ manages to complete a fight without being knocked out. In baseball, the phrase is used to mean ‘to pitch for the entire length of an inning’, and in horse racing a horse that can ‘go the distance’ can run the full length of a race without tiring.