From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmarathonmar‧a‧thon1 /ˈmærəθən $ -θɑːn/ ●●○ noun [countable] 1 DSOa long race of about 26 miles or 42 kilometres the Boston Marathon Garcia ran the marathon in just under three hours.2 LONG TIMEan activity that continues for a long time and needs a lot of energy, patience, or determination We finished the job but it was quite a marathon.
Examples from the Corpus
marathon• The season is a marathon, not a sprint.• The movie theater is holding its annual horror film marathon.• I figure from here to the Cloisters and back is pretty darn close to a half marathon.• Without Shirley, he probably wouldn't have done a ton of marathons and collected his first medal from the Hundred Club.• So he prepared the past four months in San Jose, Costa Rica, to run his third marathon.ran ... marathon• Garcia ran the marathon in just under three hours.marathonmarathon2 adjective [only before noun] LONG TIMEa marathon event continues for a long time and needs a lot of energy, patience, or determination a marathon round of negotiations► see thesaurus at longExamples from the Corpus
marathon• a marathon game of MonopolyOrigin marathon1 (1800-1900) Marathon, place in Greece; from the story that in 490BC a Greek soldier ran about 25 miles from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens, to bring news of the Athenian victory over the Persians 