Definition of "cable's length" [cable's length]

• Variant of cable length. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The uninterrupted blaze which was kept up from them till the fleet had passed, served only to exhilarate our sailors, and afford them matter for jest, as the shot fell in showers a full cable's length short of its destined aim."
• "Upon the expiration of that term and on the return of the flag of truce without an answer, he anchored his flagship just half a cable's length from the mole head at the entrance of the harbour, so that her starboard broadside flanked all the batteries from the mole-head to the lighthouse."
• "The Spanish frigate was just rounding-to, a cable's length to windward."